Melittis

Bastard Balm ( Melittis melissophyllum )

The Bastard Balm ( Melittis melissophyllum ) is a plant species in the mint family ( Lamiaceae). The genus is monotypic Melittis, that is, it consists of a single species M. melissophyllum.

Name

The genus name Melittis is a neoplasm Linnaeus for this species, which was previously called Lamium montanum or Melissae portfolio. It is derived from the Greek μέλισσα mélissa, ( Melitta ) = bee. The Style epithet derives from Latin mel honey and Greek φύλλον phyllon = leaf from what is explained by the honey smell of the crushed leaves. The name is already melissophyllon by Virgil ( Georgics 4.63 ) and Pliny the Elder ( Naturalis historia book 20.116 and 21.149 ) used for the Immenblatt.

Description

The Bastard Balm is a perennial, herbaceous plant with a creeping rhizome ( Hemikryptophyt ). The plants reach a stature height of 20 to 50 centimeters. The stems are erect and dull square. The stems and leaves are densely covered with soft hairs members.

The leaves are stalked 0.5 to three millimeters long. The leaf blade is ovate, wrinkled, hairy on both sides and notched sawn roughly to the edge.

The flowers sit at one to three in the upper leaf axils and are often einseitswendig. The cup is 1.5 to two inches long, broadly bell-shaped, ten - annoying, and just at the edge and on the nerve, often glandular, hairy. The calyx upper lip tridentate to ganzrandig and longer than the bidentate lower lip. The crown is three to 4.5 inches long. She is mostly white outside, the upper lip is white or light purple and dotted inside. The upper lip is entire, finely glandular- hairy. The lower lip usually has a bright purple purple middle lobe. Sometimes, especially in South Tyrol, the crown is pure white. Bloom time is from May to June, the pollination is done by bumblebees and butterflies. Ecologically flowers are proterandrische, nectar leading -scented honey lip flowers.

The partial fruits are 3.5 to four millimeters long, smooth or hairy. You slimy wet.

Subspecies

The sometimes given subspecies such as M. melissophyllum subsp. carpatica or M. melissophyllum subsp. melissophyllum provided by Fischer ( 2005) in question.

Occurrence

The Bastard Balm grows in thermophilic deciduous forests of hill and montane zone. It usually grows on moderately fresh, calcareous, loose and humic clay and loamy soils. It is a Ordnungscharakterart of thermally bonded mixed oak forests ( Quercetalia pubescentis ).

The distribution is meridional / montane to südtemperat in oceanic Europe. The range extends from the Iberian Peninsula, France and the British Isles over Germany and Italy to Poland and the entire Balkan Peninsula to the Baltic states and Central and South Russia.

In Austria it is found in all states except Vorarlberg. In Salzburg and Tyrol it is just south of the main Alpine ridge known, namely in the Lungau region and in East Tyrol. In Germany it is found in the states of Baden -Württemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Rhineland -Palatinate, Saxony, Saxony -Anhalt and Thuringia, where it is classified in the northern states as endangered to threatened with extinction. In Switzerland it is native.

Gallery

Inflorescence

Pink color variant

White color variant