 Green leaves c 7 mm across Posidonia oceanica = Posidonia |
 Tamus communis = Black Bryony |
Nature Notes - The Mallorca Pages
Monocotyledons other than Orchidaceae and Liliaceae
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Green leaves c 7 mm across Posidonia oceanica = Posidonia |
Tamus communis = Black Bryony |
Posidonia is a flowering plant that grows on the sea-bed, and broken off pieces get washed up on the shore, rather like with Eelgrass here, but whereas we normally just see a few strands of Eelgrass among great masses of seaweed on the strandline, Mallorcan beaches often have strandlines made up almost entirely of Posidonia. All the plant material in the picture is Posidonia - fresh green leaves, old brown leaves, and stem base with fibrous sheath remains.
Black Bryony was a frequent climber in the woods, with a
similar habit to Sarsaparilla, and often growing with it so that the two twined
round each other. The leaves are arrow-shaped with large basal lobes, and
it was just about to flower at the time I was there. The white flowers and
dark blotchy leaves in the picture are Balearic Cyclamen, and the plant with
leaves in whorls is of the Goosegrass family, probably Wild Madder.
 Height c 15 cm Arum italicum = Italian Arum |
 Spathe c 4.0 cm tall Arisarum vulgare = Friar's Cowl |
Two of Mallorca's four members of the Arum family here.
Arum leaves without flowers were frequent but could not be identified between A
italicum and A pictum; the spathe shown however is definitely A italicum.
The leaves die down around flowering time and this one had no leaves remaining
at all. Friar's Cowl was quite frequent on bare ground, usually in shade.
The fourth species, Dracunculus muscivorus, is even stranger than these, but I
did not see it.
 Flower c 3.3 cm across at widest Gladiolus - unknown species |
 c 2.1 cm = stem L edge to furthest R fl tip Juncus acutus ssp acutus = Sharp Rush |
These wild Gladioli were quite frequent on roadsides. There are three very similar species, notoriously hard to tell apart, and I was certainly unable to do so.
I only recall seeing a rush on one occasion,
that was the Sharp Rush shown above, in a 100 cm tall tuft by a forest track
near the coast.
 Height of picture = c 7.6 cm Brachypodium retusum = Mediterranean False-Brome |
 Plant c 210 cm high Ampelodesmos mauritanica (previous year's panicles) |
It was not the right time of year for grasses, and I was only able to positively identify three, apart from species known from Britain. The latter included Annual Meadow-grass (Poa annua), which was a common weed of paths and gardens, and Wall Barley (Hordeum murinum), but I didn't bother photographing these.
In general Mallorcan grasses seem far more diverse than their British equivalents, and even from looking at the pictures in the book one can see that, at the right time of year, it will be easier to tell them apart than the endless pages of almost identical species in the British books. Mediterranean False-Brome is one striking example; the leaves are short, numerous all the way up the stem, and held horizontally. It is the dominant field layer in some woods. Ampelodopsis mauritanica is easy to recognise due to its huge size; its tussocks are very common on roadsides and in abandoned fields etc.
 Hyparrhenia hirta (previous year's spikes) |
 Height of inflorescence = c 4.8 cm Scirpoides holoschoenus = Round-headed Club-rush |
The third identifiable grass was Hyparrhenia hirta, with its spikes in V-shaped pairs. Very common on roadsides. The Round-headed Club-rush, a sedge, was on the edge of a dry river bed, a clump with stems up to 240 cm tall. The only other sedge I saw was a medium-sized tufted Carex species (or possibly more than one species) which grew in odd spots in woods. Though Mallorca only has 10 Carex sp, I was not able to identify it as the fruits had not yet formed, and my attempted pictures are not worth including.