Saponaria ocymoides

Red soapwort ( Saponaria ocymoides subsp. Alsinoides ) in Corsica

The Red soapwort ( Saponaria ocymoides ) is a plant that belongs to the carnation family ( Caryophyllaceae ). It is also known as Small-flowered soapwort soapwort or Small.

Description

The perennial herbaceous plant has prostrate to ascending shoots and often forms lawn. It reaches heights of growth between 10 and 40 centimeters.

The egg-shaped, spateligen leaves are hairy. The Laubblattspreite be 2 to 3 inches long and 0.5 to 1.3 inches wide.

The flowers are easy to tufted at the ends of branches. The dark purple crown is 12 to 18 millimeters long and has an approximately 1 mm long corona. The sepals are fused together into an 8 to 10 millimeters long tube that is hairy glandular. The capsule fruit is 6-8 mm long and opens with four teeth.

Bloom time is from April to October.

Occurrence

The circulation area covers the mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, Corsica, Sardinia, Slovenia and the Apennines to the Alps. In the Alps, but it is common in the northern Alps rare. In Austria, often up scattered in the provinces of Carinthia, Tyrol and Vorarlberg on the hill and subalpine altitudinal zone.

As the site dry slopes, scree corridors, river sediment, Wegböschungen, sparse forests (especially pine forests ) but also walls are preferred. The plant is base -loving.

System

The species is divided into two subspecies:

• Saponaria ocymoides subsp. ocymoides - nominate as described
• Saponaria ocymoides subsp. alsinoides ( viv ) Arcangeli - Plant slender, wenigblütiger and with smaller flowers than subsp. ocymoides. Endemic to Corsica and Sardinia. Here subsp missing. ocymoides.

History

The Red soapwort was performed by the lawn -like growth already in 1561 by Conrad Gesner as a garden plant, remained over the centuries, however, unnoticed. The Austrian minister Johann Theophil Zetter recommended in 1837 the plant " for the decoration of rock outcrops, walls and walls, etc ".

Today it is one of the more common plants in rock gardens and dry stone walls. Through selection also exist several varieties such as' Splendens ', ' Rubra Compacta "or" Karminkönigin ".