Teucrium chardonianum Maire & Wilczek
Fre.: Germandrée.
Subshrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 1 m in height, highly ramose from the base, with extended-erect branches. Bark greyish, slightly fissured on the trunk and older branches. Young branches whitish-tomentose. Leaves opposite, (2-3.5 × 0.4-0.7 mm) from obovate to obovate-spatulate, sessile, with ± revolute margin, green on the upper side, with some appressed and whitish-tomentose hairs on the underside. Inflorescences in small terminal cymes, with 4-10 flowers, usually geminate. Calyx campanulate, about 4-8 mm long, with dense and appressed hairs. Corolla with glabrous tube and ± villous lips, liliaceous to purple. Stamens exserted, with glabrous anthers and filaments. Fruit an ovoid-triangular achene, 3-4 mm × 2.5-3, covered by characteristic dense lanate hairs. Seeds obovate, keeled through the middle and white.
Flowering:
Mainly in winter and spring, although flowering plants can be found almost at any time of the year.
Fruiting:
About 2 months after flowering.
Habitat:
Areas of rare and scarce thickets, coastal cliffs, on silty-sandy substrates, sometimes slightly rocky. From arid to desert bioclimate but with the influence of atmospheric humidity typical of littoral and sublittoral ocean areas.
Distribution:
Endemic to North Africa. Littoral and sublittoral western Sahara, to the N from the steppes near to the Num river mouth to the N, and to N of Mauritania in the S.
Observations:
The genus Teucrium is well represented in North Africa, with almost 80 species described so far. A similar species to T. fruticans, T. malenconianum and T. chardonianum, and from the same section (Teucrium), is T. brevifolium Schreb., smaller in size (up to 60 cm in height), with leaves from linear to oblong, with revolute margin, greyish-tomentose on both sides, and smaller corolla (c. 1 cm long); it grows in the eastern Mediterranean, reaching in the W to Morocco, in North Africa.
Conservation status:
Usually common species, but sometimes very threatened, at least locally. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Red List of vascular plants of Egypt (Flora Aegyptiaca Vol 1, 2000) T. brevifolium is listed as “Extinct”.
