Antirrhinum orontium L.
wild antirrhinum
Annual herb; stems to c. 50 cm tall, often not branched. Lvs subsessile, 20-60-(80) × 1-5-(8) mm, linear to narrow-oblong, glabrous or somewhat glandular-hairy; base attenuate. Fls in long, lax, glandular-hairy terminal racemes; peduncle often < flowering part. Bracts 10-27 mm long, resembling lvs but usually narrow-linear. Calyx 10-18 mm long, divided almost to base; lobes linear, of unequal length, glandular-hairy. Corolla 12-18 mm long to apex of upper lip, pink with darker veins and white inside pouch, glandular-hairy or glabrate outside; tube < lobes of calyx, < 5 mm wide; upper lip emarginate; middle lobe of lower lip c. 2 mm long, almost triangular, truncate, concealed by lateral lobes until late anthesis. Capsule 7-9 mm long, broad-ovate, densely glandular-hairy. Seeds c. 1 mm long, black, keeled on 1 side, papillate on the other and with a prominent depression surrounded by a raised sinuate border.
N.: northern parts, uncommon elsewhere; S.: locally common in Nelson, uncommon elsewhere.
Eurasia, N. Africa, Macaronesia 1906
Waste places such as railway yards, docks, and roadsides, also arable land.
FL Jul-Mar.
Wild antirrhinum is sometimes a nuisance in crops in the Nelson area. Because of the unequal calyx lobes and the curious configurations of the seed, the sp. is sometimes put into a separate genus, Misopates Raf., as M. orontium (L.) Raf.
