Flora-Fauna

Veronica cymbalaria Bodard

First published in Mém. Véronique Cymb.: 3 (1798).

(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 263, Pl. CXXXIII, 2; 1983)

• Life-form & habit: Branched annual with prostrate or slightly ascending, often flexuous stems, 10–30 cm long; hairs may be glandular or non-glandular.

• Leaves: Stalked, broadly rounded and shallowly divided into 5–9 lobes or deep rounded teeth. The terminal lobe is broad and blunt. Floral bracts resemble the leaves but are usually smaller and shorter-stalked.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Flowers occur among leaf-like bracts; buds nod. The spreading white corolla, often yellowish at the centre, is 6–12 mm across and exceeds the calyx. Fruiting stalks are 15–30 mm long and often curve downward near their tips.

• Fruit: Inflated, kidney-shaped capsule, 2–3 mm long, slightly shorter than the calyx, hairy or occasionally hairless; usually containing four cup-shaped seeds.

• Phenology: Flowering January–May.

• Habitat & elevation: Cultivated fields, gardens, waste ground, walls, dunes, screes and rocks.

• Lebanese distribution: Saida, Tripoli, Ras Beirut, Beirut, Nahr el Kalb, Ghazir, Baabda, Chemlan, between Jezzine and Beit ed Dine, Antoura and Kornet Chehwan.

• Syrian distribution: Amrith, Bahamra east of Latakia, Aleppo, Sarmada, Hamme, Damascus, between Damascus and Raboue, hills north of Damascus, Jabal Qasyoun, Bloudane and Zebdani.

• Native range: Albania, Algeria, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., France, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, Libya, Morocco, NW. Balkan Pen., Palestine, Portugal, Sardegna, Saudi Arabia, Sicilia, Spain, Tunisia, Türkiye, Türkiye-in-Europe.

• Introduced into: Belgium, Canary Is., Chile Central, Germany, Great Britain, Louisiana, Netherlands, New Zealand North.