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Polygala L.

Genus integrated in North Africa by 12 native taxa, most of them herbaceous, but with 3 taxa somewhat woody at the base.

P. sinaica Botsch., spiny subshrub, deciduous, up to 0.5 m in height, velvety-pubescent. Racemes lax, terminal, with up to 10 flowers, calyx with membranous external sepals, with a wide green vein, white internal sepals (wings), elliptic, with dense brown-greenish venation. Stony deserts, dried watercourses (wadis), cracks in rocky outcrops in Sinai Peninsula, Negev, Palestine and Arabian Peninsula.

P. aschersoniana Chodat, suffruticose plant with somewhat thick leaves with revolute margin, glabrous, linear-lanceolate and short racemes, with few flowers; sepals linear with highly visible green veins. A remarkable endemism to the mountainous areas of NE Libya (Cyrenaica), from the Akhdar Massif to Derna. This species’ closest relatives are in Sicily, Sardinia and mountains in Greece and the Aegean Sea.

P. rupestris Pourr. (incl. P. saxatilis Desf.), very different from the two previous species for being more herbaceous; leaves membranous, not coriaceous, not deciduous; outer sepals and wings persistent; upper petals larger than the keel and crest highly developed and fimbriate. This is a rare species, but widely distributed across the Mediterranean non-steppic area of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In addition to subsp. rupestris, a further 2 subspecies are recognised: subsp. font-queri Pau ex Font Quer, endemic to Morocco, and subsp. oxycoccoides (Desf.) Batt., a dwarf herbaceous plant with obovate and somewhat thick leaves, present in Algeria and Morocco.

Relatively common and widespread species, they are not considered threatened, except maybe for P. aschersonia that has a small distribution area. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. P. sinaica  has been recently listed as “Endangered” (El-Khalafy et al. in Phytotaxa 502(3): 237-258, 2021).

Updated by: A. Lahora.