Limoniastrum monopetalum ('grand statice'), is a species of flowering plant in the family Plumbaginaceae that is native to Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia. It has been found in salt marshes, dunes and other coastal areas with high salinity levels. It has silver-grey or light green leaves on multi branching stems. At the ends of the stems are the summer blooming flowers, in shades of pink, purple, lavender and violet. It is known to be salt and drought tolerant (as a halophyte), as well as having the ability to withstand some forms of soil pollution.
Description
Limoniastrum monopetalum is a small evergreen shrub, that has long thread-like and tufted fine roots, with ephemeral roots that are produced in a wet season and then vanish afterwards. The wide spread of the roots helps the plant withstand the high salinity conditions and they can also travel down to at least 50 cm (20 in) to reach the water table. It can grow up to 90–120 cm (35–47 in) tall, with much branched, and leafy stems. They are terete (round in cross-section) and grey in colour. The leaves are normally at the top of the branches, leaving the base of the branch, bare with leaf scars. It has light green, green-grey, or silvery blue-green, leather-like, stiff, narrowly spathulate (spoon-shaped) leaves. They are covered with white granulations; calcareous (carbonate deposits) tubercles. This gives the plant a whitish grey aspect. It blooms between mid-Spring and early Summer. Variously; between March and November, between July and August, or June to August. The numerous flowers, come in shades of pink, lavender pink, purple-pink, or lavender flowers. As they die they fade to violet. They have articulated rachis (spine) and tubular or funnel-shaped corolla (the petals of a flower), they appear at the ends of the branches. They have leathery bracts, the external sepals are 2.5–7 mm and the internal sepals are 7.5–9 mm long, scarious (dry and membranous), covered almost entirely by the internal bract. It also has 5 stamens. After flowering it produces a fruit (or seed capsule), which is membranous, indehiscent and included in the calyx.
Biochemistry
It is a halophyte plant, and the leaves of Limoniastrum monopetalum have been studied to determine how the plants phenolic contents and biological activities coped with various solvent effects. In 2014, the salt excretion crystals on the leaf surface of the plant were studied as a possible metal detoxification mechanism.
Taxonomy
It is known in Mali as zeïta and zita in Arabic. It is known in Spanish as Salado or Verdolaga seca, and in Catalan as Ajocagripaus. It has the common name of 'Grand statice', (reflecting the former name of the genus). The specific epithet monopetalum, derived from Latin monopetalus and ultimately from Greek mono and pétalon, means one petal. Using an earlier description by Carl Linnaeus when he had named it as Statice monopetala in his book Species Plantarum in 1753. After the genus Statice was re-classified as 'Limoniastrum', it was then first published as Limoniastrum monopetalum (L.) Boiss by Pierre Edmond Boissier in 'Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis' Vol.12 on page 689 in 1848. It was verified by United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service on 9 August 1995, as Limoniastrum monopetalum, and it is an RHS Accepted name and was last-listed in the RHS Plant Finder in 2016.
Distribution and habitat
Limoniastrum monopetalum is native to temperate areas between Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia.
Range It is found in Europe, in the Mediterranean countries of Portugal, Corsica, Spain, France, Greece, Balearic Islands of Mallorca and Menorca, and Italy (incl. Sardinia and Sicily). Within North Africa and Asia, it is found in Algeria, Libya and Egypt. It has been introduced to Morocco and Tunisia. Since 1995, it has been found in the Canary Islands.
Habitat In Egypt, it is found in salt marshes, coastal sand dunes and rocky ridges habitats. It is also found in the dunes of the salt marsh around Lake Manzala and Lake Mariut, on the west Mediterranean coast and also the salt marshes near Sallum. In Portugal, it is found in salt marshes with Atriplex portulacoides. It is often found growing alone.
Protection status It appears on the list of plant species protected throughout mainland France.
Cultivation
L. monopetalum is hardy enough for a Mediterranean climate. It can take sporadic frosts down to −5 °C (23 °F). This means between USDA Zone 10a and Zone 11. It can grow in any type of soil, even in poor and salty soils, and it grows well in sandy soils, and can tolerate neutral or acidic soils (with pH levels between 6.6 and 7.8). It prefers to grow in positions in full sun, but is very resistant to drought, and pollution. It is suitable for coastal planting, and they have been used in Mediterranean coastal gardens to cover slopes, planted in bushy groups and in pots and planters. They can combine well with plants of the genus; Cistus, Salvia, Rosmarinus, Eriocephalus and Bupleurum. In the Baleares, it has been grown as a groundcover for motorway roadsides, although in some littoral (near shore) areas it has become naturalized. They are not usually attacked by the usual Mediterranean pests and diseases.
Propagation Limoniastrum monopetalum can be propagated in summer by cuttings, using the stem-tip method or by In vitro micropropagation. It was noted that cuttings taken in the winter or the spring, were more successful than those collected in summer or autumn.
Cultivars There is one known cultivar; Limoniastrum monopetalum 'Carnaval' which is an evergreen subshrub that forms a mound, and has fleshy, spoon-shaped to narrowly lance-shaped, grey-green leaves and magenta flowers that bloom from early summer to early autumn. It is frost hardy.
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