Ononis vaginalis Vahl
O. vestita Viv.
Eng.: Restharrow. Spa.: Garbancillo. Fre.: Bugrane.
Shrub or suffrutex up to 0.5 m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, evergreen, highly branched from the base, erect, very viscous. Stems and old branches with brownish bark, younger ones green, densely hairy-glanduliferous. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate and leaves of the floral part unifoliolate, subsessile and with stipules fused sheathing the stem, leaflets c. 4 × 2-3 mm, somewhat thick, obovate-cuneate or orbicular, dentate on the distal half, green, densely puberulous-glanduliferous. Inflorescences axillary, although often grouped at the end of the stems, peduncle with an arista 2-5 mm, subspinescent, and 1 pedicellate flower. Calyx c. 7 mm, hairy-glanduliferous and with eglandular longer hairs, green, split into 5 teeth c. 3 mm, linear-lanceolate, 1.5-2.5 times longer than the tube. Corolla 8-16 mm, papilionoid, with a glabrous standard, yellow with purple veins, wings and keel yellow or yellowish-white, the keel falcate. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy and capitated stigma. Pod 10-18 mm, pendulous, subcylindrical, hairy-glandular, very exserted, with 5-10 seeds. Seeds c. 2 mm, subreniform, tuberculate, brown.
Flowering:
January to April.
Fruiting:
February to May.
Habitat:
Sandy maritime areas.
Distribution:
Species with a fragmented distribution, growing in the Canary Islands, North Africa (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) and eastern Mediterranean region (Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria).
Conservation status:
A rare but widely distributed species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the updated red list of Egypt (Shaltout & Bedair, 2023) it has been considered as Least Concern (LC).
