MaltaWildPlants.com by Stephen Mifsud
 
     
   19 Mar 2024      ()
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Portulaca oleracea   (Purslane)


Portulaca oleracea  (PORTULACACEAE.) 
Images for this profile are taken from the Maltese Islands after year 2000.

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Profile Date Oct-2007 (taxon update: none)
Citation for this page Mifsud, S. (2022). Portulaca oleracea - datasheet created on Oct-2007. Retrieved from MaltaWildPlants.com on 19-Mar-2024

Nomenclature and Basic Information

Species name :

Portulaca oleraceaL.
Published in Sp. Pl. : 445 (1753)

Synonyms :
(basionym or principal syn.)

Portulaca retusa Engelm.
Full list of synonyms : [Euro+Med] [PlantList] [IPNI] [POWO] [Catalogue of Life] [Worldplants.de]

Plant Family :

Portulacaceae Juss. (The Purslane Family)
1 species from the Portulacaceae family is recorded from the Maltese Islands.

English name(s) :

Purslane, Little Hogweed

Maltese name(s) :

Burdlieqa

Status for Malta :

Indigenous. Present on the Maltese islands before man

Frequency :

Very Common     Common    Frequent    Scarce     Rare    Very rare    Extinct

Growth form :

Raunkiaer lifeform [info]: THEROPHYTE ( annual plants, herbaceous )
Germination [info]: Dicotyledon

Legal Protection :

Not legally protected till the last update of this website (2/Mar/2022)

Red List (1989) :

Not listed in the Red Data Book of the Maltese Islands

Flowering Time :

May – October

Colour of Flowers:

Yellow

Toxicity:

Not particularly toxic

Name Derivation :

Portulaca:
oleracea: used for cooking as a vegetable or herb, but often used to indicate that it is edible. (Latin origin )

Planting in rural areas :

Can be planted in rural areas according to ERA Guidelines

Remarks :

A Summer flowering plant which have yellow flowers that close late in the morning. It is used for its seeds as a food for some cage birds. The plant produces large quantity of seeds which are highly germinative and hence this can lead to invasivness of sites that it grows well, namely disturbed ground near arable sites.


Description, Habitat and Distribution
Habitat in Europe: Cultivated as a vegetable (Purslane), and a weed of cultivation.
Preferred habitat in Malta: Data will be available in the next update of this website.
Botanical Description: Annual with branched stems 10-50 cm. Leaves mostly scattered and alternate, but subopposite and crowded below flowers, oblong-obovate, sessile with a cuneate base, shining. Flowers solitary or 2 or 3 together,often terminal. Sepals c. 4 mm, keeled, united into a short tube at the base; petals 5, 6-8 mm, yellow, obovate, slightly united; stamens 7-12. Capsule 3-9 mm, obovoid; seeds black.
Distributional range: Europe, northwards to c. 55° N. Not native, except perhaps in parts of the south casual only in N. Europe.

Distributional map in Europe
and the Mediterranean region (2018):
Occurrences in Europe.
(from Flora Europaea pre year 1993):
Albania, Austria and Liechtenstein, the Azores, the Balaeric Islands, Bulgaria, Corse, Crete, Czeck Republic and Slovakia, France (incl. Monaco and Channel Islands but excluding Corse), Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Spain (incl. Andorra but excl. the Balaerics), Hungary, Italy (excl. Sicily and Sardignia), ex-Jugoslavia, Portugal, Romania, Russia and former USSR, Sardinia, Sicily and/or Malta, Turkey (European part), Introduced in  Belgium, Britain (excl. Northern Ireland and Channel islands), the Netherlands, Poland
Occurrences in Europe and the Mediterranean region.
(from Euro+Med Checklist, 2019)
  Country codes  
AE Au(A) Be(B) Bl(I M N) Cy Eg Ga(F) Ge Gr He Hs Hu Ir It Lu Ma Sa Si(M S) Sn Sr Tn Tu(E) [Ca(T) aFe nHs(S) nLu nPo]

Links & Further literature (1 papers)

Google Web

Google Images

Google Scholar

Research Gate

Wikipedia

JSTOR

GBIF

Med Checklist

Cat. of Life

EoL

IPNI

World Flora Online

Plants of the World Online

Vienna Virt. Herb.

RBGE Herbarium

KEW Herbarium

MNHN

Arkive

IUCN

CABI
Diversification of Portulaca oleracea L. complex in the Italian peninsula and adjacent islands Avinoam Danin, Fabrizio Buldrini Marta Bandini Mazzanti, Giovanna Bosi, Maria Carmela Caria, David Dandria, Edwin Lanfranco, Stephen Mifsud and Simonetta Bagella  (2016)
Kindly Email if there are papers and publications about local studies or information about this species to be included in the list above.

Species Images (5 images)
   Portulaca oleracea   -   Image Code: PRTOL-0.
   Portulaca oleracea   -   Image Code: PRTOL-1.
   Portulaca oleracea   -   Image Code: PRTOL-2.
   Portulaca oleracea   -   Image Code: PRTOL-3.
   Portulaca oleracea   -   Image Code: PRTOL-4.

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