Bupleurum gibraltaricum Lam.
B. verticale Ortega
Eng.: Shrubby hare’s-ear. Spa.: Cuchilleja. Fre.: Buplèvre de Gibraltar.
Subshrub or shrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 1.5(2) m in height, branched at the base and with stems or branches long, straight and flexible in good soil, or short and tortuous (less than 50 cm) in rocky outcrops. Main stems with brown-greyish bark, slightly fissured. Young branches green. Leaves alternate, and also in a basal rosette (5-16 × 1-3 cm), coriaceous, semiamplexicaul, longly lanceolate, acute, with uncinate mucro, attenuated at the base, glabrous, glaucous, with entire margin, with narrow semitransparent rim. Inflorescence with compound umbels, terminal and lateral, 1 or more inflorescences (sometimes up to 15), arranged at the end of the branches. Each inflorescence with (3)5-25(57) rays which in turn are divided at the end into smaller ones, on which the flowers are borne. Base of the main umbel and base of the secondary umbels surrounded by a whorl of ovate or lanceolate, persistent bracts. Flowers with elongated, greenish ovary, crowned by a yellow disk on which 5 small yellow petals are borne, inrolled forwards. Sepals absent. Stamens 5, alternating with the petals. Fruit pedicellate, smooth with clearly winged ribs, smooth, 1 vitta per valleculae and 2 on the commissural side.
Flowering:
June to August.
Fruiting:
September to November.
Habitat:
Thickets and, more especially, in rocky outcrops. It prefers calcareous soils, in a sunny environment. Fom semiarid to subhumid bioclimate, on mainly thermomediterranean floor.
Distribution:
Iberian-Mauritanian endemic. In North Africa it is a rare species, with 2 disjunct distribution areas: one discontinuously follows the Mediterranean coast, from the Tingitana Peninsula to the western Tellian Atlas and the other is found in northern and central Tunisia.
Conservation status:
Rare species although locally it may become common. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.