Periploca angustifolia Labill.
P. laevigata Aiton subsp. angustifolia (Labill.) Markgr.
Eng.: African woldbane. Spa.: Cornicabra. Fre.: Périploque. Ara.: Halleb, halleba, hellaba, hellab, halaab, dahar el hallab, bur haliba. Tam.:/Tamahaq: Selluf, asslift.
Shrub, hermaphrodite, up to 3 m in height, highly branched, deciduous in very dry summers. Branches flexuous, samentose and somewhat tangled, puberulous, with whitish latex. Bark greyish-brown, with chestnut tones. Leaves 15-30(35) × 2-4(8) mm, opposite, rarely subopposite, linear-lanceolate, coriaceous, entire, glabrous, shortly petiolate; petiole 0.5-2 mm. Cymes with 2-9(15) flowers, axillary, pedunculate, with puberulous peduncle. Flowers 9-15 mm in diameter, bracteate, pedicellate; bracts 0.5-1.5 × 0.5 mm, puberulous; pedicels 2-7 mm, puberulous. Calyx with 5 ovate sepals, greenish, with lobes 2-2.5 × 2 mm, triangular, obtuse, glabrous or subglabrous. Corolla with lobes 4(6)-6(7) × 2.3 mm, obtuse apex, violet brown on adaxial side and dark violet or dark brown in the centre, with a white elliptical spot, glabrous on inner side. Staminal corona green, lobes 5, with 5 red appendages borne at the base, finely papery, first upright and then very recurved toward the centre and downwards (hook-shaped). Follicles subcylindrical (4)5-10(14) × 0.4-0.8(1.1) cm, at a 180° angle when ripe, with incurved apex, glabrous, brown. Seeds 4-9 × 1.5-2.2 mm, oblong, black, with a tuft of hairs 25-35 mm, yellowish-white.
Flowering:
Throughout most of the year, but preferably between December and May.
Fruiting:
2-4 months after flowering.
Habitat:
Cleared forests, thickets and rocky outcrops, on any substrate. In desert to semiarid bioclimate, in the Mediterranean region always at low altitude, on inframediterranean and thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
SE Spain, Sicily, Malta, Crete, Syria and North Africa. It is most widely distributed in North Africa, found through most of the arid and semiarid Mediterranean area and much of the Sahara, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
Conservation status:
Rare species but widely distributed. 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) it has been considered as Least Concern (LC). In Tunisia it is included as P. laevigata in its List of native species that are rare and threatened with extinction (Order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, 19-July-2006). In the updated red list of Egypt (Shaltout & Bedair, 2023) it has been considered as Endangered (EN).