Sideritis syriaca

The drug of Sideritis syriaca.

The Syrian member herb ( Sideritis syriaca ) is a plant from the mint family ( Lamiaceae). This kind possesses a disjoint area with a subspecies in Crete and one in Turkey and Syria. It is used as a tea.

Description

The Syrian member herb is a little branched at the base, woody plant. It reaches a height of 30 to 50 centimeters. Your hair is drüsenlos. The dense white wool hairy leaves are arranged opposite constantly on the stem. The lower leaves are stalked 0.5 to 1 inches long by 2 to 3.5 inches long, elliptic to oblong - verkehrteiförmiger, ganzrandiger or finely notched leaf blade. The upper leaves are nearly sessile with narrow elliptic - oblong, 1-5 inches long leaf blade.

The three to ten Scheinquirle are all apart and each containing six to ten flowers. The middle bracts are 7-15 mm long, broadly ovate, pulled in a 3-6 mm long tip, white wool, drüsenlos, as long as the flowers or something shorter. The calyx is 6-9 mm long, with 3 to 4 mm long, linear- lanceolate, acuminate teeth. The crown is 8 to 12 millimeters long, pale yellow, no brown stripes on the upper lip.

System

Sideritis syriaca belongs within the genus Sideritis to section Empedoclia.

The Syrian member herb ( Sideritis syriaca ) is divided into two subspecies:

• Sideritis syriaca L. subsp. syriaca: the features are described at the type. The chromosome number is 2n = 32
• Sideritis syriaca subsp. nusairiensis (Post) Hub. -Mor. , differs from the nominotypischen subspecies by something stronger branching, 2 mm long, lanceolate - triangular calyx teeth, and brown striped crown. The chromosome number is 2n = 32 with sometimes up to 3 B- chromosomes.

Closely related are in, for example, in Flora Europaea included, in recent floras but treated separately Sideritis taxa raeseri Boiss. & Heldr. ( Western Balkans ), Sideritis italica ( Miller) Greuter & Burdet ( = Sideritis sicula Ucria ) (Italy, Sicily) and Sideritis taurica Willd. (Crimea, Bulgaria, Northern Anatolia). Also officinal the name is often used in a broad sense.

The factually inaccurate botanical name of the Syrian element herb goes back to Caspar ileocecal who called this way in his 1623 published work " Pinax theatri botanici " Pilosella syriaca. This founded on tradition epithet was maintained by Carolus Linnaeus in the first edition in Species Plantarum, although he indicates as distribution statement " Habitat in Creta ". The Sideritis cretica described on the same side was assigned by Linnaeus mistakenly Crete; she is a resident of the Canary Island of Tenerife. Sideritis nusairiensis post was in 1893 described as a separate species and found only Sideritis syriaca 1978.

Dissemination

The two subspecies of Sideritis syriaca are disjoint used: Sideritis syriaca subsp. syriaca is, despite its name, an endemic of the island of Crete, in the mountains, White Mountains and Psiloreitis relatively common, rarely on Afendis Kavousi, missing in Dikte. Habitat are the Phrygana the montane and subalpine meadows of the hedgehog cushion height level, at altitudes from 1000 to 2000 meters.

Sideritis syriaca subsp. nusairiensis is also a mountain plant and comes as endemic in Nurgebirge ( = Amanus ) at altitudes from 1200 to 2100 meters on rocky Kalkhängen ago. This subspecies occurs in Turkey in the provinces of Hatay, Adana and Gaziantep before, in the province of Latakia in Syria.

Use

The Syrian member herb is, as well as other species of the section Empedoclia, estimated as the tea plant. It is sold in Crete as " Malotira " or " Cretan mountain tea ". For the tea infusion already lignified inflorescences are collected and dried. He is often drunk as a house tea and has a pleasant, mild flavor. The Syrian member herb is not cultivated on a large scale in Crete and is affected by the commercial picking up risk.

Sideritis syriaca is related to Sideritis clandestina, which is offered as a Greek mountain tea occasionally also in Central Europe.