Thrift Family [Plumbaginaceae] |
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petals
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19th July 2007, the North shores of Walney Island, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
Flowering stems not as densely populated with flowers as Common Sea-Lavender. Up to 30cm tall. |
19th July 2007, the North shores of Walney Island, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
Un-upened flowers look like short purple-headed matches. |
19th Aug 2010, salt-marshes, Lytham, Lancashire. | Photo: © RWD |
The flowers are scattered fairly sparsely along all the branches. |
19th Aug 2010, salt-marshes, Lytham, Lancashire. | Photo: © RWD |
Flowers lilac at the tip, with paperish white sheaths, and pink bands. Flowers are spread all along the flowering stem, un-like those on Common Sea-Lavender. |
19th Aug 2010, salt-marshes, Lytham, Lancashire. | Photo: © RWD |
The clincher between this and Common Sea-Lavender are the purple-brown coloured anthers, yellow on the latter. |
19th Aug 2010, salt-marshes, Lytham, Lancashire. | Photo: © RWD |
The flowers don't seem to open as wide on Lax-flowered Sea-lavender than they do on Common Sea-Lavender. |
10th Oct 2015, salt-marshes, Marshside, Sefton Coast, Merseyside. | Photo: © RWD |
Flowers with 5 stamens with purple anthers, 5 styles and 5 petals. |
A DIRECT COMPARISONLax-flowered Sea-lavender (left)with Common Sea-lavender (right) |
19th July 2007, the North shores of Walney Island, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
The leaves of Lax-flowered Sea-lavenderare narrower and perhaps a lighter shade of green, the flowers more separated and here opening after those of the Common Sea-lavender. |
19th July 2007, the North shores of Walney Island, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
The stems are sometimes angular. At each bifurcation of the stem is a short, pointed and reddish brown (green in Common Sea-Lavender) bracts. |
19th July 2007, the North shores of Walney Island, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
The leaves are narrower than those of Common Sea-Lavender |
Easily confused with : other Sea-lavenders such as Common Sea-Lavender which has broader leaves and flowers more clustered together. The stems of Lax-flowered Sea-lavender are often angular. Can also be confused with Rock sea-lavender, which is very variable, being split into 22 slightly differing plants: 6 species and 16 subspecies, mostly identifiable only by experts and by specific location. There is also a Matted Sea-lavender but that only occurs in the Wash estuary, mainly now on the north Norfolk coastline. Hybridizes with : Common Sea-Lavender (Limonium vulgare) to produce Limonium × neumanii, but whether or not the above specimen is one such is un-known; they both grow in the same hectad.
No relation to : Lax-flowered sea-lavender is much less ubiquitous than is Common Sea-Lavender and is classed as scarce, being found in less that 100 hectad squares. Grows in salt-marshes like Common Sea-lavender, but is rarer than that, [R]. Present mainly in the west of England on the Lancashire and Cumbrian coasts, North Wales coasts, around Portsmouth, north Norfolk coast, and many parts of the coast of Ireland. It is, of course, salt tolerant.
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Limonium | humile | ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ | Plumbaginaceae |
Limonium (Sea-lavenders) |
Thrift Family [Plumbaginaceae] |