Halimium halimifolium (L.) Willk.
Spa.: Jaguarzo blanco, jaguarzo hembra, monte blanco. Fre.: Grand halimium, halimione à feuille d’obione. Ara.:/Tam.: Maliya, helehl.
Evergreen shrub, hermaphrodite, 1.5(2) m in height, erect, highly ramose. Branches and branchlets greenish-silvery. Branchlets covered by a dense tomentum of stellate and peltate hairs, yellowish, very short. Leaves opposite, with entire margin, flat or slightly undulate, 3-veined, with stellate hairs on both sides and also with some peltate hairs on the underside, greenish-silvery, slightly darker on the upper side; leaves of sterile branches 0.8-5 × 0.4-2 cm, elliptic, broadly lanceolate, oblong or slightly spatulate, with short petiole 1.5-6 mm; leaves of floriferous branches 1.5-4 × 0.3-1.2 cm, oblong-lanceolate, sessile. Inflorescence in paniculiform cymes, longly pedunculate. Calyx with 5 very unequal sepals, outer 2 sepals reduced to small linear appendages and inner 3 sepals larger, 4-10 mm, ovate-apiculate, all covered with stellate, peltate hairs, and sometimes also with simple, glanduliferous and reddish hairs. Corolla with 5 petals, 8-16 mm, cuneiform, yellow, sometimes with a dark patch at the base. Fruit an ovoid capsule 4-8 mm, dehiscent in 3 valves, enclosed within the persistent calyx. Seeds c. 1 mm in diameter, polyhedral, with tuberculated surface, from brown to greyish. 2n = 18.
Flowering:
March to June.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Clear forests and thickets on sandy soils and other plains, low and medium mountain, usually below 1,100 m. Always on ± siliceous terrains; it is a calcifuge species. From dry to humid bioclimate, on mesomediterranean to supramediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Western Mediterranean. In North Africa it grows in the non-desert area from Morocco (where it reaches the Anti-Atlas to the S) to Tunisia.
Observations:
Several subspecies have been differentiated from this small shrub, but not all authors recognise them; some reduce them to only 2 subspecies, whilst others simply include them all within the normal variability of the species (such as Demoly, 2006, who also considers it all as Cistus halimifolius L.) Traditionally, the following 3 are the most accepted subspecies.
H. halimifolium subsp. halimifolium, erect shrub up to 1.5(2) m in height, with sepals covered with only peltate hairs and rarely some stellate hair along the margins; branchlets, leaves and bracts without simple hairs, wedge-shaped petals (cuneiform). It grows in the S of Europe, from the S of Italy to the Portuguese Algarve. In North Africa it grows along the coast and further inland, from the N of Morocco to the N of Tunisia.
H. halimifolium subsp. multiflorum (Salzm. ex Dunal) Maire [H. halimifolium subsp. lasiocalycinum (Boiss. & Reut.) Raynaud, H. lasiocalycinum (Boiss. & Reut.) Grosser ex Engl.], similar in size, sepals with simple, silky hairs, mixed in with peltate hairs and numerous stellate hairs; branchlets, leaves and bracts with simple hairs, petals in the shape of an inverted heart (obcordiform). This taxon has a smaller distribution area; it is found only in littoral and sublittoral sandy terrains, penetrating only slightly inland, through the SW of the Iberian Peninsula (western Andalusia and S of Portugal) and NW Morocco.
H. halimifolium subsp. riphaeum (Pau & Font Quer) Raynaud (H. riphaeum Pau & Font Quer), very similar to subsp. multiflorum, so much so that for some authors its separation is not justified; in essence, it differs from it by its smaller size (up to 1 m in height), and larger sepals (8-12 mm long, while in subsp. multiflorum they are 4-8 mm long.)
Recently, plants that grow in cleared forests and grasslands, between 900-1,900 m in the Kest Massif (western Anti-Atlas) are also being included in the subsp. multiflorum; these were being considered as H. antiatlanticum Maire & Wilczek in the last decades. They differ mainly by their glabrescent branchlets with very short hairs.
Conservation status:
H. halimifolium is a common and even locally abundant species. H. antiatlanticum is less common and with a much smaller distribution area. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.