Alyssoides utriculata, (L.) Medicus

1. A. utriculata (L.) Medicus , Philos. Bot. 1: 189 (1789).

Perennial with woody, much-branched stock; stems up to 40 cm, simple. Leaves green; those of non-flowering branches petiolate, densely crowded, rosulate, oblong-spathulate, with stellate hairs; those of flowering stems sessile, lanceolate, glabrous, sometimes cibate. Sepals 8-12 mm; petals 20 mm; limb suborbicular, entire. Silicula 10-12 mm, ovoid-globose; valves strongly inflated; style 7-10 mm, filiform. Rocks and crevices . S.ÌV. & W.C. Alps, Appennini, Balkan peninsula, S. Romania. Al Bu G a G r It Ju Rm.

Variable particularly in indumentum. The plants from the Alps are as described above. The plants from Italy (apart from the Alps), Romania and the Balkan peninsula, have bifurcate as well as stellate hairs in the indumentum of the rosette-leaves and are often distinguished as a separate species, A. graeca (Reuter) Jâv. , Bot. Közl. 21: 73 (1923), or subspecies; in Bulgaria plants with bifurcate hairs on the cauline leaves and long patent hairs on the pedicels are regarded as var. bulgarica (Sagorski) Hayek. Other variable characters in this complex are the shape of the petals and longer pedicels but they do not correlate with the indumentum characters.