Ecbolium viride (Forssk.) Alston
Shrub or subshrub, hermaphrodite, up to 2 m in height, with young branches and leaf petioles glabrous and glaucous to densely puberulent. Leaves opposite, petiolate, lauroid, glabrous or puberulent, with petiole 1-10(20) mm and leaf blade 4-18(20) × 2-7.5(9) cm, ovate-elliptic, acute, sometimes rounded, with the base usually decurrent on the petiole. Inflorescence in dense bracteate spikes, solitary or in groups of 3(5), with peduncle 3-20(30) mm and axis puberulent and with glandular hairs ± densely arranged. Bracts form ovate to orbicular; those in lower nodes 10-25 × 8-20 mm. Flowers sessile, solitary or grouped in 3 in the lower nodes of the inflorescence, with 2 bracteoles at the base (1-3.5 mm). Calyx 3-7 mm, tubular, with 5 lanceolate lobes. Corolla with 5 fused petals, blueish-green, with tube 2-2.8 mm, narrow, curved, slightly widened below the lobes, and 2 lips; lower lip with 3 lobes, ovate or elliptical, the central wider than the lateral ones; the upper lip with a single lobe curved backwards and with a bifid apex. Androecium with 2 stamens, with medifixed dithecous anthers. Fruit in clavate capsule, with 2-4 seeds.
Flowering:
In spring.
Fruiting:
In late spring and summer.
Habitat:
Rocky outcrops and limestone scree, and beds of wadis, between sea level and 1,100 m.
Distribution:
Horn of Africa (Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, reaching towards the N to the mountains in the SE edge of Egypt) and S of the Arabian Peninsula.
Conservation status:
Fairly common and widely distributed species. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.