BITUMINOSUM   Bañares, 2002

Distribution : Gran Canaria, local in the central part from San Mateo (near La Lechucilla) to Tenteniguada valley, at 900 - 1600 m ; confined to shady and humid places, on cliffs and rocky walls in N and NE exposures, between Roque Grande and Roque del Pino.

Description :

Biennial herb up to 25 cm tall, simple or scarcely branched, subviscid and with the smell of bitumen.

Stem 5 - 8 (-12) mm thick in adult plants, greenish, sometimes weakly suffused with red at flowering, densely and entirely glandular-pubescent.

Leaves light green (sometimes weakly suffused with red abaxially), spathulate, glandular-pubscent, petiole 1 - 2.5 cm, lamina rhombic, 1.5 - 3 x 1.2 - 2.5 cm, broadest at or below the middle, sometimes concave, apex obtuse and emarginate, margin not or scarcely papillose, black-dotted but not crenulate.

Inflorescence a lax panicle, 2 - 3 branched, densely glandular-pubescent, branches 2.5 - 7 cm with spathulate to oblanceolate leaves, 5 - 10-flowered, pedicels 3 -5 mm.

Flowers 8-9-merous, calyx glandular-pubescent, to 2/3 divided into lanceolate acuminate segments, 3 - 4 x 1 - 1.2 mm, petals light yellow, elliptic, apiculate, 4.5 - 5.2 x 1.6 - 2 mm, (apiculus 0.5 - 0.8 mm), 1.5 x as long as the sepals, margin usually crenulate at apex, abaxially puberulent.

Flowering time : May.

Note :

In the past Aichryson bituminosum has been confused with other taxa. Most likely it is the same plant Praeger interpreted as the hybrid of A. porphyrogennetos x A. punctatum.