Family |
Lamiaceae
Teucrium orientale
L.
Teucrium orientale L.
First published in Species Plantarum: 562 (1753)
(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, Pl. XVIII nº 1; 1983)
• Life-form & habit: Multistemmed perennial herb 20–50 cm tall, sometimes woody at the base. Stems erect, hispid with spreading hairs, branching oppositely and forming short panicles.
• Leaves: Green or slightly canescent, subpetiolate, broadly ovate in outline, once or twice pinnatisect into narrow linear segments; margins slightly revolute.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Peduncles bearing 1–3 flowers; pedicels longer than bracts and calyces. Calyx shortly campanulate, slightly hispid, with 5 narrowly lanceolate, acute, keeled teeth exceeding the hemispheric tube. Corolla blue-violet, 10–15 mm long, 3–4 times longer than the calyx; lower lobe concave, slightly acute, hispid beneath; filaments long-exserted and glabrous.
• Fruit: Nutlets glabrous, covered with a transparent whitish pruine.
• Phenology: Flowers June – July.
• Habitat & elevation: Rocky slopes and subalpine grasslands of Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon; 1 000 – 2 200 m.
• Lebanese distribution: Reported by Mouterde from Ehden, Hasroun, Mar Semaʿan, ʿAïn Saouacir, Laqlouq, Col de Zahlé, Jabal Kneissé, the Cedars of Bcharré, Douma, ʿAqoura, Ouadi Fouʿara, Qaʿa er-Rime, the source of the Orontes, and Mount Hermon.
• Native range: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye.
• Introduced into: Pennsylvania (POWO).
• ⚠️ Taxonomic note: The typical variety (var. orientale) occurs throughout Lebanon and Syria, while var. nivale Boiss., a smaller montane form with mostly uniflorous peduncles, represents an ecological variant from higher elevations such as Jabal Sannine and above ʿArné on Mount Hermon