Teucrium fruticans, Linnaeus, 1753

Marzouk, Ream I., El-Darier, Salama M. & Askar, Abdelbaset M., 2016, Nutlet micromorphological characters of Teucrium taxa (Lamiaceae) in Libya, Phytotaxa 263 (3), pp. 245-254 : 252

Teucrium fruticans L.

A light brown and oblong nutlet (1.43 × 0.61 mm) of surface densely covered with non-glandular hairs altering to moderately hairy towards the abscission scar. Hairs are long, articulate and smooth-surfaced. Smooth-surfaced oil glands are uniformly distributed in a moderate manner along the nutlet surface. The nutlet sculpture is striate with distinct protrusions of rugate ornamentation. The abscission scar is elliptic and occupies about 74% from the nutlet length ( Table 2 and Fig. 1 , 37–42).

In all examined species, the nutlet shape is elliptic, oblong in only T. fruticans . The most frequent nutlet color is the dark brown, beside the light brown in T. brevifolium , T. fruticans and T. lini -vaccarii, and the brown in T. campanulatum . The nutlets are characterized by conspicuous abscission scar of orbicular shape in T. capitatum , and elliptic shape in other species. This scar occupies less than 50% from the nutlet length in both T. apollinis and T. barbeyanum , more than 60% in T. brevifolium , T. campanulatum , T. fruticans and T. polium , and from 50 to 60% in the other species.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Teucrium nutlets micrographs using SEM. T. barbeyanum, 1–5; T. apollinis, 6–8; T. capitatum, 9–11; T. davaeanum, 12–14; T. lini–vaccarii, 15–17; T. polium, 18–20; T. polium subsp. flavovirens, 21–23; T. zanonii, 24–26; T. brevifolium, 27–31; T. campanulatum, 32–36; T. fruticans, 37–42.