Rhaponticum coniferum

The different types of intervening bracts.

Tuberculate cistern with vilane of long feathery silky hairs.

Rhaponticum coniferum, commonly called shepherd's spoon, is a species of the genus Rhaponticum, formerly Leuzea, in the family Asteraceae.

Description

It is an evergreen herbaceous plant, gray-green, up to half a meter high at most but usually no more than 30cm. The erect stems are simple or branched, furrowed longitudinally and with white tomentum. The leaves measure up to 20 by 5cm but are sparse and smaller towards the top of the stem; the basal and middle ones are generally stalked, most often pinnatipartite or pinnatisect, with more or less lanceolate lobes, less frequently entire, with a green upper surface, abundant hairs, and white tomentose underside; the upper ones similar but usually sessile. The capitulescences are terminal and solitary with an involucre of 2.5-5 by 2-4 cm, ovoid to globose, surmounted by the florets, with papyraceous-coriaceous bracts arranged in 10-15 series, gradually larger from the outside towards the inside, brutally widened into a scarious, occasionally lacerated, suborbicular apical appendage that gives them a spoon-like appearance (hence their common name 'shepherd's spoon'). The innermost ones are linear with a more or less marked rhombic appendage. The receptacle is concave and deeply polygonally alveolated, with dense silvery-white threadlike palea implanted on the edges of the floscular alveoli. The corolla of the florets are white to pink, with the apex of the petals often purplish. The fruits are oblong achenes measuring 3-5 by 2-3 mm, tuberculate and covered by 4 imperceptible longitudinal ribs, dark brown to blackish in color, glabrous and with a long 20-30 mm deciduous pappus, white feathery hairs with long cilia. and welded at the base in a ring.

Distribution and habitat

Native and widely distributed throughout the Iberian Peninsula, although rarer in the western part, the Balearic Islands, France including Corsica, Italy including Sardegna and Sicily, Malta and North Africa

It thrives in forest and scrub clearings, slopes, scree, vacant lots, etc..., on preferably basic substrates from sea level to 1900 m above sea level.

Cytology

• Number of chromosomes: 2n=26

Taxonomy

Rhaponticum coniferum was described by Linnaeus and originally published as Centaurea conifera in Species Plantarum, vol. 2 P. 915, 1753[1].Werner Rodolfo Greuter included it in the genus Rhaponticum in Willdenowia, vol. 33(1), p. 61, in 2003. Previously, Augustin Pyrame de Candolle had transferred the species to the genus Leuzea, created ad hoc, in Flore Française, ed.. 3, t. 4, p. 109[2], in 1805.

Taxonomy

• Rhaponticum: of the Latin, built from the Vocablos Rha, of the Greek άthe Volga River, and Pontīcus, a,umthe Ponto Euxino was, according to Dioscorides, a black root plant of the Black Sea and border regions that, in the Pseudo Dioscórides, the Romans called rhâ Pónticoum, and prelingual authors considered that certain species of Rhaponticum the said rhâ Pónticoum Roman.
• coniferum: built with the Vocablos cōnus. -I, of the Greek χωνος, cone and fero, of the Greek φ, carry, endure, that is, 'who carries a cone', allusion to the conical form of chapter.

Sinonimia

• Centaurea conifera L., 1753 (basionimo)
• Centaurea pitycephala Brot, 1804
• Leuzea conifera (L.) DC., 1805 non Spreng., 1826

Common names

• Castellano: wild artichoke, Alcachofilla, alkachophic, arcans, arzolla, cardo de arzolla, cardo del sol, Holy shitCry her, shepherd’s spoon, shepherd's spoon, Virgin's spoon, arnica flower, guitar, pujos herb, picias, pinillo, pinochas, pineapple, pineapple of Saint John, pineapples, pineapples, mountain pineapples, country plant, quacharite plant, prognosis, scursion root, zarzaparrilla. In italics most common/extended names