Hedera maroccana McAll.
H. helix L. subsp. maroccana (McAll.) Fennane
Eng.: Ivy. Spa.: Hiedra mora. Fre.: Lierre. Ara.: Qessuss, luaïa, luwaya, habl el masakeen. Tam.: Tanesfalt.
Woody plant, hermaphrodite, perennial, which can exceed 10 m in height climbing trees and rocks through its aerial adventitious roots. The stems are tortuous and from which a main trunk ends up standing out. Twigs dark red when young, changing to cinnamon or pale greenish-brown when older, nearly glabrous; they have trichomes with 4 to 9 rays; rays 0.05 to 0.15 mm, hyaline, central part reddish. The leaves (25-90 × 20-100 mm) are usually five-lobed (rarely with 3 or 4 lobes), with apical lobe acute to subacute; heteromorphic: chordate base in juveniles, then subtruncated and cuneate in adults (sometimes they are indistinguishable, that is, homeomorphic). The juvenile leaves have petioles of 20-130 mm, with few trichomes, similar to those of the stem. Inflorescence terminal, umbelliform, dense. Flowers small, greenish. Calyx very small, hardly visible, with 5 tiny sepals ± triangular. Corolla with 5 petals triangular-lanceolate, first open in a star shape, then folded backwards. Alternating with the petals, there are 5 stamens with greenish-whitish anthers. Fruit fleshy, subglobose, with a mucronate cap on top (actually it is the upper cover of the ovary), of an intense black color; contains 3-5 seeds inside.
Flowering:
August to November.
Fruiting:
March to May.
Habitat:
Forests, shady rocky outcrops and, in general, humid and shady places, on all types of terrains, from sea level to 2,500 m. Natural populations are usually found above 1,000 m. From semiarid (along watercourses or shady areas) to hyperhumid bioclimate, on mesomediterranean and supramediterranean floors.
Distribution:
It is endemic to Morocco (present in almost the entire country except the Saharan portion) and NW Algeria.
Observations:
Traditionally, H. helix subsp. canariensis (Willd.) Cout. has been considered the ivy of North Africa, from Morocco to Tunisia, also cited in Morocco as H. helix subsp. helix and in Libya and Palestine as H. helix without specifying the subspecies. Rutheford, McAllister and Mill in 1993 describe and propose H. maroccana as the Moroccan (and western Algerian) species, while more towards the E the genus would be represented by H. algeriensis Hibberd., and H. canariensis Willd. is now relegated only to the Canary Islands. Later, Fennane recombined the Moroccan and western Algerian taxon as a subspecies of H. helix. Thus, in North Africa, 2 subspecies of H. helix can be distinguished, or 2 very close species.
H. helix McAll. [H. helix L. subsp. helix sensu Fennane] is an Eurasian ivy very similar to H. maroccana. The biggest differences between the two taxa are in the trichomes on the underside of the juvenile leaves. In the North African species, the trichomes are short (0.1-0.4 mm), generally with more than 10 rays reddish-orange, rotated (rays applied in the same plane), while in H. helix they are longer (0.5-1 mm), with less than 10 rays whitish, ± stellate, multidirectional (rays scattered in different planes). Introduced as an ornamental and naturalized, H. helix can be found, widely distributed, in NW Mediterranean Africa (from Morocco to Tunisia).
Conservation status:
Common and widely distributed species. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) H. maroccana (as H. helix subsp. maroccana) has been considered as Least Concern (LC), the alien H. helix subsp. helix, and the absent H. canariensis (as H. helix subsp. canariensis) as Not Applicable (NA).