Cistus albidus: Endemic plant of the western Mediterranean , spreading through Portugal , Spain , Morocco , Tunisia and southern Italy . In the Peninsula it is found mainly in the southwest quadrant.
Summary
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- 1 Etymology
- 2 Feature
- 3 Habitat
- 4 Source
Etymology
Cistus was the classical Latin name for rockrose. The specific epithet albidus means whitish in Latin and refers to the chromatic appearance of its leaves. The common name of jara comes from the Arabic xara which means thicket.
Characteristic
Shrub 1.5-2 m high, erect and branchy, with twigs covered with a dense tomentum of starry and yellowish hairs. Leaves 10-40mm, with short petiole and elliptical to oblong limb, greyish green in color, with the upper surface covered with stellate hairs and the underside with stellate hairs and some peltate. Young flowery branches tomentose-whitish on both sides; brownish as adults.
Flowers grouped in cyymose inflorescences, which can be paniculate, lax or dense. Pedicels of the inflorescence densely covered with stellate and peltate hairs. Calyx formed by 5 unequal sepals; the 2 external ones (which can be reduced to one or missing), are small, linear and, in part, concrescent with the other three; the 3 internal ones are acrid when fruiting, covered with peltate and stellate hairs, and may have simple reddish glandular multicellular hairs. Corolla formed by 5 petals between 8 and 16 mm, wider at the apex, yellow, immaculate or with a macula at the base. Short club-shaped style.
Fruit in capsule, located inside the calyx, persistent, ovoid and with abundant stellate hairs in the apical area. Seeds of approximately 1mm, polyhedral-convex, tuberculated and greyish or brown in color.
Habitat
Present in dunes, sandy areas, coastal pine forests, Pinus Pinaster and Pinus Pinea forests , holm oaks, cork forests and areas of dry scrub on the thermomediterranean floor. It lives in all types of soils, but preferably in siliceous ones. Xerophilous species, not very tolerant to intense winter cold. It can form dominant extensions: white mount (in Doñana).
It is characteristic of the Halimio halimifolii-Stauracanthetum gerzistoidis association, which forms the jaguarzal or white mountain of Doñana, a highly specialized sabulícola community made up of xerophilous camephytes and nanophenophytes that have a great capacity for taking water in a physiologically dry environment such as paleodunas and sandbanks of the Onubense sector.