Thymelaea lanuginosa (Lam.) Ceballos & C.Vicioso
Daphne lanuginosa Lam., Th. canescens (Schousb.) Endl.
Spa.: Boalaga. Fre.: Passerine. Ara.: Agaras, metenan.
Shrub up to 100 cm in height, gynodioecious (some plants with female flowers and others with hermaphrodite flowers). Older stems glabrescent and without leaves. Young stems covered by greyish lanate hairs. Leaves ± appressed-imbricated at the end of young stems, patent immediately after distancing from the end of the branch; 3.5-6 × 1-2.5 mm, from ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, subacute, flat, sessile, herbaceous, persistent, lanuginous on both sides. Inflorescences in glomeruli, with 7-10 flowers, ebracteate, at the end of short branches. Flowers hermaphrodite and female, rarely male; hermaphrodite flowers 5.5-7 mm, ± tubular; female flowers 3-4 mm, ± ovoid; yellow (turning pink-brownish after maturity); hypanthium with lanate hairs; sepals 1.5-2 mm, ovate, obtuse, the overlapping pair of sepals with a partial indumentum on their inner face. Anthers orange. Style subapical. Fruit nuciform, included in the hypanthium, with pericarp membranous and with an indumentum. Seeds 1.3-1.4 × 2.2-2.4 mm, ± pyriform, with a curved apex and a prominent chalaza, without an aril.
Flowering:
December to June.
Fruiting:
April to August.
Habitat:
Sandy terrains, coastal and subcoastal, rarely inland, usually in the distribution area of Quercus suber forests, from almost sea level to about 300 m in altitude.
Distribution:
SW Spain and NW Morocco (Tingitana Peninsula).
Observations:
A very similar and closely related species is Th. gattefossei Kit Tan, an endemic species to the sublittoral sandy plains between Rabat and Casablanca. It was identified as Th. lanuginosa until 1977, when it was proposed as a separate species (Tan 1977. Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 35: 345-347). It differs from Th. lanuginosa mainly by having inflorescences with 9-14 flowers on shorter brachyblasts and wider leaves. The known collections of Th. gattefossei are very few and old (the most recent form 1930’s). In June 2000 we were unsuccessful in finding it around Buskura and Buznika. In our opinion, the characters and the material on which the description of this species were originally based are insufficient to support this separation. Possibly, it could be considered an ecotype or a population of which its few and presumably weak differences with Th. lanuginosa are due to a relatively recent isolation; thus, it would be better placed in an infraspecific category.
Conservation status:
Th. lanuginosa is a rare species with a small distribution area. Th. gattefosei is not well known, and would be a very rare taxon. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.