Cistus creticus L.
C. villosus L.
Eng.: Pink rock-rose, hoary rock-rose. Spa.: Jara, estepa. Fre.: Ciste villeux. Ara.: Qaçça. Tam.: Irgel, hamiku.
Evergreen shrub, hermaphrodite, up to 1-1.5 m in height, erect and highly ramose. Stems with brown-greyish bark, very dark in older specimens. Branchlets whitish, ± villous. Leaves small, 0.6-4.5 × 0.4-2 cm, opposite, with winged petiole 2.5-15 mm long, ovate or ovate-oblong, with the margin generally slightly undulate, from dark green to ashy green, densely covered with stellate hairs and with some simple hairs —in some subspecies glandular hairs are frequent—. Flowers 3-5 cm in diameter, with pedicels 0.7-4 cm, usually grouped in terminal cymes, but sometimes some are solitary. Sepals 5, ± equal, villous, with stellate hairs and more rarely simple or glandular hairs. Petals 5, 17-20 × 15-18 mm, pinkish-purplish with yellow base, ± twice as long as the sepals. Fruit an ovoid-acute capsule, 0.7-1 cm long, ± villous. Seeds numerous and yellowish. 2n = 18.
Flowering:
March to June.
Fruiting:
Throughout the summer.
Habitat:
Indifferent to the type of terrain, it grows in both carbonate and silicate soils, from almost sea level to 2,100 m in altitude. From semiarid to humid bioclimate, on inframediterranean to mesomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Circum-Mediterranean, although with a disjunct distribution within this area. In North Africa it extends from the N of Morocco to the N of Libya.
Observations:
Polymorphic species, with 3 subspecies cited in North Africa: subsp. creticus (incl. C. creticus subsp. corsicus (Loisel) Greuter & Burdet, in Algeria and Libya), subsp. eriocephalus (Viv.) Greuter & Burdet (from Morocco to Libya) and subsp. trabutii (Maire) Dobignard (endemic to Morocco). However this species is highly polymorphic, and therefore these taxa, at the subspecific level, are in need of more detailed studies, including cultivation under homogeneous conditions to determine which characters are fixed and which are due to the plasticity of the species.
Conservation status:
Common species, it does not seem to present serious conservation problems in North Africa. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.