Erinacea anthyllis Link
Anthyllis erinacea L., E. pungens Boiss.
Eng.: Hedgehog broom. Spa.: Piorno azul, aulaga merina. Fre.: Hérissonnette piquante, genêt-hérisson. Ara.: Keddad, achdir, awutem, qesdir, ruggis. Tam.: Timachuid.
Subshrub or spiny shrub, up to 0.8(1) m in height, hermaphrodite, deciduous, cushion-shaped, highly branched from the base. Stems and old branches with thick bark, almost suberose, brown. Young branchlets erect or erect-patent, opposite or subopposite, rigid and sharp, with (8)10-13 T-shaped ribs, silvery, sericeous, with medifixed hairs. Leaves mostly unifoliolate —lower leaves sometimes trifoliolate—, opposite —the upper leaves alternate— subsessile or petiolate, without stipules, promptly deciduous, with leaflets 5-13 × 2-3.2 mm, oblanceolate or spatulate, ± obtuse, attenuated at the base, entire, sericeous-silvery on both sides. Flowers solitary, in pairs or in groups of 3 at the end branchlets of the current year, pedicellate, with pedicel up to 8 mm, sericeous. Calyx 12-15 mm, only just bilabiate, cylindrical at first and later inflated, subcylindrical-urceolate, papery, sericeous, pinkish or somewhat purple, with 5 triangular-subulate teeth, the upper 2 somewhat smaller. Corolla 14-19 mm, papilionoid, purplish to blue-purple —exceptionally white—, marcescent, with an oblong standard, truncate, glabrous, and wings and keel as long as or slightly longer than the standard. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy, and capitated stigma. Pod 12-22 × (3.5)4-6 mm, oblong or narrowly-elliptical, compressed, acuminate and attenuate at the base, sericeous, with a persistent calyx, and 1-4 seeds. Seeds 2.7-3.2 mm, ovoid, compressed, smooth, glabrous, usually dark-brown, shiny.
Flowering:
April to June.
Fruiting:
July to September.
Habitat:
Clearings in forests, thickets and rocky outcrops, on calcareous and siliceous substrates, in mountains and high plateaux (1,000-3,500 m in altitude). In semiarid to subhumid bioclimate, on supramediterranean and oromediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Southern France (Pyrenees), and eastern and southern half of peninsular Spain, and NW Africa: Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. On the studied territory it is abundant in the western Rif, Middle Atlas, High Atlas, Anti-Atlas, western and central Saharan Atlas, steppic mountains of the High Muluya —W of Midelt—, mountains of Hodna, Bellezma, Djurdjura, Babors, Tunisian Dorsal and other mountains of central Tunisia (Jebel Sened, Sidi Buzid, etc.).
Observations:
The specimens in Tunisia (Thala region) and eastern Algeria (Jebel Chelia, between 1,300 and 1,600 m —Aures—) are grouped under E. anthyllis subsp. schoenenbergeri Raynaud [E. schoenenbergeri (Raynaud) Raynaud]. It differs from E. anthyllis Link subsp. anthyllis by its larger size, not hemispherical, and especially because all leaves are trifoliolate, as well as for its flowers with a pink corolla.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.