Limonium limbatum |
Limonium |
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desert sea-lavender, trans-Pecos sea lavender |
marsh-rosemary, rosemary, sea-lavender, statice |
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Habit | Plants herbs, usually perennial, scapose, acaulescent; taprooted or rhizomatous. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leaves | all in basal rosettes, living at anthesis, 10–25 cm; petiole narrowly winged distally, 0.1–9 cm, shorter than blade; blade oblong-spatulate, obovate, or elliptic, 4–16 × 1.5–6.5 cm, leathery, base gradually tapered, margins entire, apex rounded or retuse, often short-cuspidate, cusp less than 1 mm; main lateral veins ascending, obscurely pinnate. |
basal (sometimes also on inflorescence axes), sessile or petiolate; blade often punctate, elliptic to obovate, oblanceolate, spatulate, oblong, or round, usually coriaceous, base usually long-attenuate, margins entire or toothed to pinnatifid, apex rounded to apiculate or retuse. |
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Inflorescences | axes not winged, 30–60(–100) cm × 2–3 mm, glabrous; nonflowering branchlets absent; spikelets densely aggregated at tips of branchlets, internodes 0.5–3 mm; subtending bracts 1–5 mm, apex obtuse, surfaces and margins glabrous; flowers 1–3 per spikelet. |
usually of terminal panicles or corymbs, ultimate branch tips bearing secund, usually 1–3(–5)-flowered spikelets. |
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Pedicels | absent or present (very short, subtended by 3 or 4 sheathing bracts). |
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Flowers | calyx whitish distally, with reddish brown ribs, obconic to slightly funnelform, 3.5–5 mm, ribs usually densely pubescent; tube ca. 3 mm; lobes spreading at maturity, 0.5–1.5 × 1–1.5 mm; petals blue to nearly white, not exceeding calyx. |
homostylous; calyx tubular to funnelform, 5-ribbed, glabrous or pubescent, plicate, lobes oblong to triangular, sometimes with smaller intervening lobes, or lobes ± connate and calyx mouth erose; petals nearly distinct, white, lavender, or yellow, long-clawed; filaments adnate to base of corolla; anthers included; styles 5, distinct to base; stigmas linear-clavate, papillate. |
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Fruits | utricles, usually exserted from persistent calyx, brownish green, usually capped by marcescent corolla and style bases. |
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Utricles | 2.5–3 mm. |
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x | = 8, 9. |
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Limonium limbatum |
Limonium |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Aug. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Wet meadows, gypsum soils, salt flats, alkaline depressions in the interior | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 400-1800 m (1300-5900 ft) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
AZ; NM; OK; TX
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Worldwide; especially from Mediterranean region east to c Asia |
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Discussion | Species ca. 300 (8 in the flora). The greatest diversity in Limonium is found in Europe (ca. 100 species and many subspecies; see S. Pignatti 1972) and in Mediterranean and central Asian regions, often on saline or calcareous soils and cliffs near the coasts; other species are found in saline marshlands. The showiest species (L. arborescens and L. perezii), with a persistent blue-purple to lavender calyx, have their origin in the Canary Islands; they are often cultivated for ornament or their inflorescences are air-dried for floral arrangements under their Linnaean name “Statice.” Other species have been used in rock gardens. Six species are locally naturalized in California. Limonium vulgare Miller (Statice limonium Linnaeus), similar morphologically to L. carolinianum, has been reported by H. J. Scoggan (1978–1979, part 4) from central Saskatchewan and southern Ontario (“in a weedy...cemetery...York Co., where ‘growing without cultivation’”). It is doubtful that the species persists or is spreading. Recent revisitation of the site in Ontario by J. E. Eckenwalder (pers. comm.) suggests that Limonium vulgare is no longer extant there. Limonium leptostachyum (Boissier) Kuntze (S. leptostachya Boissier) has been reported from New York by R. S. Mitchell and G. C. Tucker (1997); it is doubtful that this central Asian species is naturalized in the flora area. It differs from all other species in the flora area by having small (10–30 × 5 mm), deeply pinnatifid leaves and narrow, spikelike inflorescences. Some species of Limonium, e.g., L. sinuatum, have dimorphic pollen and stigmas that result in self-incompatibility, although the native species in the flora area have been shown to be self-compatible (H. G. Baker 1953b). Agamospermy is also common in some extraterritorial species, and this may account, in part, for the taxonomic difficulty in some groups of Limonium. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 5, p. 608. | FNA vol. 5, p. 606. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Plumbaginaceae > Limonium | Plumbaginaceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | L. limbatum var. glabrescens, Statice limbata | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Small: Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 25: 317. (1898) | Miller: Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4, vol. 2. (1754) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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