Hymenonema laconicum

Hymenonema laconium is a perennial herbaceous plant of 20–70 cm (7.9–27.6 in) high, with minute pale glandular hairs and longer hairs without glands. The number chromosomes is twenty (2n = 20). Both surfaces of the leaves are densely set with rigid hairs pressed to their surface. The leaves in the basal roset are 7–25 cm (2.8–9.8 in) long and pinnately segmented, sometimes with teeth at the margin. The top segment is larger than the lateral segments, and 1½-3 cm wide, or sometimes a little as 1 cm. Between one and six smaller leaves are distanced along the stem, the lowest pinnately segmented, the higher increasingly simple, small and narrow. Each stem carries between one and three flowerheads. The involucre is 1.5–2.5 cm (0.6–1.0 in) high and 1.5–2.25 cm (0.59–0.89 in) wide, with the individual bracts without hair, ovate to oblong-ovate in shape, with a rounded tip and an entire or dentate margin. The pits in the common base of the florets (called the receptacle) are each circled by a row of long hairs. The fruits (or cypselas) are 4–5 mm high and topped by the changed calyx called pappus. On the outer cypselas the pappus takes the shape of trifid scales, the middle branch of which is prolonged as a rigid hair. On the inner cypselas, there is a row of rigid hairs encircling a row of lanceolate scales that change at the tip into a rigid hair.

Differences with related species. …

Hymenonema laconicum is limited to the central and south-eastern Peloponnesos, in particular the Mainalo, Parnon and Taygetos mountains and the surrounding lowlands. It grows at altitudes of 5–1,300 m (16–4,265 ft) in shrubland on stony soils, field margins and meadows.

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