Corema D. Don

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1972, Flora Europaea. Volume 3. Diapensiacea to Myoporaceae, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press : 13-14

1. Corema D. Don 2

Dioecious. Flowers in capitate, bracteate racemes, terminal at anthesis, but in the female intercalary in fruit from continued growth of the main axis.

‘ 1. C. album (L.) D. Don in Sweet, Hort. Brit. ed. 2,460 (1830). Erect shrub; stems 30-75 cm, with numerous branches; young twigs pubescent; older twigs rough with persistent petioles. Leaves 6-10 x 1 mm, linear, obtuse, covered when young with minute, subsessile glands, glabrous at maturity, patent, with a deep, narrow groove on the apparent abaxial surface. Heads with 5-9 subsessile flowers. Sepals 2 mm, suborbicular, pubescent. Petals in male flowers 3-4 mm, obovate, pinkish; in female flowers reduced or absent. Stamens 5-6 mm; anthers red. Style present; stigma red, with 3 linear-oblong lobes. Drupe (5-)6-8 mm in diameter, white (rarely pink). 2n = 26. Maritime (or rarely inland) sands. • W. half of Iberian peninsula; Açores. Az Hs Lu [Ga].

Male plants have straight, erect branches and a strict habit; in female plants the branches are shorter, more patent and somewhat tortuous, so that the habit is more diffuse.