Plantago scabra Moench
sand plantain
Hairy annual herb with persistent primary root and elongated ascending stems to c. 60 cm tall. Lvs not rosulate, cauline, sessile, opposite and in clusters, 3-7 cm × 0.5-2 mm, narrowly linear or linear-subulate, entire or nearly so; main vein 1; hairs mostly antrorse, especially on margins; base somewhat expanded; apex ± acute. Peduncles to 8 cm long, densely clothed in antrorse hairs, in axils of upper lvs. Spikes ovoid to globular, to c. 1.5 cm long. Lower leaflike bracts 5.5-10 mm long, broad-ovate with acuminate apex, with margins of lower expanded part sometimes membranous, otherwise bract herbaceous and densely hairy; main bracts smaller, obtuse or obtuse-cuspidate, with broad membranous margins and the hairy herbaceous area confined to narrow keel. Sepals unequal, similar in size and appearance to inner bracts, 3-4 mm long, ± obovate. Corolla tube slightly > calyx; lobes 1.5-2 mm long, ovate, eventually reflexing, glabrous. Stamens glabrous, shortly exserted. Style hairy, long-exserted. Capsule 1.5-3 mm long, subglobose, 2-seeded. Seed 1.5-2 mm long, ellipsoid, dark brown; inner surface deeply concave with involute margin.
N.: Whangarei (N. Auckland); S.: Rangiora (Canterbury), Omarama (Otago).
S. and C. Europe, S.W. Asia 1957
Rare casual of gardens, probably seed impurity of ornamental spp.; for instance, 2 specimens have been collected amongst plants of Matthiola spp.
FL Nov-Apr.
Another Mediterranean sp. in subgenus Psyllium, P. afra, is treated under the key to spp.
P. scabra has been usually recorded previously in N.Z. and elsewhere as P. arenaria and P. indica. The complicated nomenclature of P. scabra has been unravelled by Fuchs-Eckert, H. P., Feddes Repert. 90: 574-575 (1980).
