Halimium halimifolium (L.) Willk.
Spa.: Jaguarzo blanco, jaguarzo hembra, monte blanco. Fre.: Grand halimium, halimione à feuille d’obione. Ara.:/Tam.: Maliya, helehl.
Evergreen shrub, hermaphrodite, 1.5(2) m in height, erect, highly ramose. Branches and branchlets greenish-silvery. Branchlets covered by a dense tomentum of stellate and peltate hairs, yellowish, very short. Leaves opposite, with entire margin, flat or slightly undulate, 3-veined, with stellate hairs on both sides and also with some peltate hairs on the underside, greenish-silvery, slightly darker on the upper side; leaves of sterile branches 0.8-5 × 0.4-2 cm, elliptic, broadly lanceolate, oblong or slightly spatulate, with short petiole 1.5-6 mm; leaves of floriferous branches 1.5-4 × 0.3-1.2 cm, oblong-lanceolate, sessile. Inflorescence in paniculiform cymes, longly pedunculate. Calyx with 5 very unequal sepals, outer 2 sepals reduced to small linear appendages and inner 3 sepals larger, 4-10 mm, ovate-apiculate, all covered with stellate, peltate hairs, and sometimes also with simple, glanduliferous and reddish hairs. Corolla with 5 petals, 8-16 mm, cuneiform, yellow, sometimes with a dark patch at the base. Fruit an ovoid capsule 4-8 mm, dehiscent in 3 valves, enclosed within the persistent calyx. Seeds c. 1 mm in diameter, polyhedral, with tuberculated surface, from brown to greyish. 2n = 18.
Flowering:
March to June.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Clear forests and thickets on sandy soils and other plains, low and medium mountain, usually below 1,100 m. Always on ± siliceous terrains; it is a calcifuge species. From dry to humid bioclimate, on mesomediterranean to supramediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Western Mediterranean. In North Africa it grows in the non-desert area from Morocco (where it reaches the Anti-Atlas to the S) to Tunisia.
Observations:
Several subspecies have been differentiated from this small shrub, but not all authors recognise them; some reduce them to only 2 subspecies, whilst others simply include them all within the normal variability of the species (such as Demoly, 2006, who also considers it all as Cistus halimifolius L.) Traditionally, the following 3 are the most accepted subspecies.
H. halimifolium subsp. halimifolium, erect shrub up to 1.5(2) m in height, with sepals covered with only peltate hairs and rarely some stellate hair along the margins; branchlets, leaves and bracts without simple hairs, wedge-shaped petals (cuneiform). It grows in the S of Europe, from the S of Italy to the Portuguese Algarve. In North Africa it grows along the coast and further inland, from the N of Morocco to the N of Tunisia.
H. halimifolium subsp. multiflorum (Salzm. ex Dunal) Maire [H. halimifolium subsp. lasiocalycinum (Boiss. & Reut.) Raynaud, H. lasiocalycinum (Boiss. & Reut.) Grosser ex Engl.], similar in size, sepals with simple, silky hairs, mixed in with peltate hairs and numerous stellate hairs; branchlets, leaves and bracts with simple hairs, petals in the shape of an inverted heart (obcordiform). This taxon has a smaller distribution area; it is found only in littoral and sublittoral sandy terrains, penetrating only slightly inland, through the SW of the Iberian Peninsula (western Andalusia and S of Portugal) and NW Morocco.
H. halimifolium subsp. riphaeum (Pau & Font Quer) Raynaud (H. riphaeum Pau & Font Quer), very similar to subsp. multiflorum, so much so that for some authors its separation is not justified; in essence, it differs from it by its smaller size (up to 1 m in height), and larger sepals (8-12 mm long, while in subsp. multiflorum they are 4-8 mm long.)
Recently, plants that grow in cleared forests and grasslands, between 900-1,900 m in the Kest Massif (western Anti-Atlas) are also being included in the subsp. multiflorum; these were being considered as H. antiatlanticum Maire & Wilczek in the last decades. They differ mainly by their glabrescent branchlets with very short hairs.
Conservation status:
H. halimifolium is a common and even locally abundant species. H. antiatlanticum is less common and with a much smaller distribution area. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) H. halimifolium has been considered as Least Concern (LC) and H. antiatlanticum as Endangered (EN).