Flora-Fauna

Verbascum gaillardotii Boiss.

(Diagn. Pl. Orient., ser. 2, 6: 128, 1859; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 214; Pl. CVIII nº 2; 1983)

• Life-form & habit: Biennial or perennial, 30–100 cm tall, covered with a short tomentose indumentum, greyish or yellowish; stems cylindrical, branched.
• Leaves: Basal leaves sessile or shortly petiolate (petiole up to 6 cm), lamina oblong-spatulate 15–35 × 5–13 cm, sinuato-dentate above the middle, lobed or pinnatifid at base, often undulate. Cauline leaves smaller; the upper sessile, cordate-lanceolate or lanceolate-linear, acuminate.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Loose, forming an oblong panicle. Flowers fasciculate in groups of 2–6 at axils of bracts. Bracts ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate-linear, acuminate. Pedicels up to 5 mm. Calyx 2–4 mm, lobes lanceolate-linear, acute. Corolla yellow, 12–20 mm in diameter, with translucent punctuations, tomentose externally. Stamens 4; filaments with purple-violet hairs, the two upper glabrous at apex.
• Fruit: Capsule broadly elliptic, 2.5–4 × 2–4 mm, tomentose.
• Phenology: Flowers June–August.
• Habitat & elevation: Degraded woodlands, abandoned lands, bushes, maquis, and steppe edges.
• Lebanese distribution: Saïda, Damour, Nahr el-Kelb, Tripoli, Hakel, Broummana, Ghazir, Deir el-Qamar, Beskinta, Bcharré, Dimane, ‘Akoura, Jezzine, ‘Akkar plain.
• Syrian distribution: Baalbeck, Kessab, Tartous–Amrith, Nahr Snobar, Massiaf, Ouadi Houreiré, Mnine, Ghouta, Doummar, Salihiyé, Karabo, Raboué, Alep, Homs, Idlib, Jabal Semaan, Hailane, Jab. ‘Arbain, Tell ‘Alo, Quneitra.
• Native range: Lebanon–Syria, Palestine, Turkey (POWO).