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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Caprifoliaceae
Centranthus ruber

Citation: DC. in Lam. & DC., Fl. Franc. edn 3, 4:239 (1805) subsp. ruber.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Red valerian, kiss-me-quick.

Description:
Perennial herbs with several branches to 70 cm long, more or less branched, glabrous; leaves oblanceolate or narrowly elliptic, usually entire and petiolate to subpetiolate on lower parts becoming ovate-acuminate with a toothed margin and sessile to stem-clasping below the inflorescence, rarely all leaves lanceolate (see note below), 3.5-12 x 1-5 cm, usually acute, glabrous, glaucous-green at least the younger leaves.

Inflorescence a terminal thyrse often divided into several cymose part-inflorescences with numerous sessile flowers; bracts linear, scale-like; calyx with numerous teeth inrolled in flower, spreading and feather-like in fruit; corolla with a slender tube 7-11 mm long, with a basal spur 4-8 mm long, pink to rose-red, rarely red or white; lobes oblong-lanceolate, 2-3 mm long, with the posterior one often slightly longer; stamens 1 with a filament inserted in the throat of the corolla tube; ovary inferior with 3 cells but only 1 fully developed with 1 pendulous ovule, with a slender style and a small terminal rounded stigma.

Fruit oblong-ovoid surmounted by a feathery pappus of equal length borne on a terminal circular ridge, compressed and with several ridges on the one side.

Published illustration: Ross-Craig (1960) Drawings Brit. Pl. 14:pl. 29.).

Distribution:    W.Aust.; N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas.   Native to south-eastern Europe but now widely naturalised throughout Europe.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: mainly Aug. — Dec.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: The subsp. ruber is usually easily distinguished from subsp. sibthorpii (Heldr. & Sart. ex Boiss.)Hayek by its ovate sessile leaves below the inflorescence except that it "can flower in its first year, when all the leaves can be more or less lanceolate, as is the foliage on side-shoots of older plants" (Richardson (1976) J. Linn. Soc.(Bot.) 71:220-2). This is particularly problematic with herbarium specimens where one cannot assess from what type of branch the preserved specimens were derived.

Author: Not yet available


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