Daphne rodriguezii: the art of camouflage

 It plays the hiding place with the wind of Menorca

This exclusive endemism of the Island of Menorca and the near Island d´en Colom is a true artist of the cripsis or camouflage. Its small size, its discreet and little compact foliage, its flowers of a white color extinguished or cream that merge perfectly with the sandy ground on which it lives and their preference to grow under other shrubs with which it intermingles their branches make it happen unnoticed completely. All botanists who have studied it are agree on how easy is to go near it ​​and see not it.
 

Flowers of Daphne rodriguezii at the beginning of April. I recommend to extend the photos with a double click to appreciate better the details. 

Floral cocoons of Daphne rodriguezii that keep extraordinary a similar one with those from the jasmin.

This Minorcan endemism grows in coastal maquis of the very windy coasts, coverall those of the East of the island. The form of the leaves and its tendency to grow almost level with the ground under other shrubs, coverall Pistacia lentiscus and Phyllirea latifolia var. rodriguezii, with their branches intermingled with those of these, protects it of the strong winds that usually whip the North and East of Menorca. It lives between the 5 and the 80 msnm.

The flowers of this small shrub of the Thymelaeaceae family can be white or cream color. In the image a unit with abundant flowers of cream color can be seen. 

The delicate and discreet color of the flowers allows it to camouflage perfectly with the siliceous sand ground of the coastal zones of Menorca and the Island d´en Colom. This small island of only 59 hectares is included in the Natural Park of s´Albufera des Grau. It is separated of the northeastern coast of Menorca by about 200 meters of sea with an immaculate water of a gorgeous turkish blue color and in it lives the most important population on Daphne rodriguezii. (To see the plane of  Parque Natural de s´Alburera des Grau)

This shrub rarely surpasses the 50 centimeters of height. Their branches are short and intricate, new with appressed hairs and old glabrous. The crust is grayish.

The other variety has the flowers of a white color extinguished that do not call anything the attention when happening next to the shrub. 

 The flowers are very small. They have the sepals and petals united forming a tube called hypanthium that usually has purple dyes and measures between 7 and 11 millimeters in length. The 4 sepals open in the end of the flower and they do not surpass the 4 millimeters.

Sprouting spring to early April.

This Minorcan endemism is catalogued like very vulnerable and in serious danger of extinction for being very sensible to the alteration of its habitat. It is including in the Red List of the Spanish Vascular Flora, in the Directive Habitat and the Agreement of Berna.

The leaves of new buds are suborbicular or obovate; the others are obovate or elliptical with the apex cleared and attenuated in the base. All are persistent, coriaceous, of dark green color and shining by the beam and paler by underside, with the margin revolute and provided of short hairs of 0´2 millimeters. 

Red-orange, fleshy and globose fruits of Daphne rodriguezii, including in the hypanthium until reaching the maturity. Usually they measure about 5 millimeters. They mature at the beginning of the summer. The fruits are eaten by the lizard Podarcis lilfordi, which then disperse the seeds with their droppings.

This endemism was found by the prestigious Minorcan botanist Joan Rodriguez Femenias in 1866. For its correct classification he sent samples to a botanical friend, Joan Teixidor Cos, who with very little ethics published it as an own discovery two years later in 1868. Despite it is necessary to say to his favor that had the detail to dedicate the new plant to his Rodriguez friend, giving it his name to the species, Daphne rodriguezii. Dr. Joan Rodriguez Femenías, very victim, a year later tried to register the plant with a new name, Daphne vellaeoides, but the international norms of nomenclature of species give priority to the first registered name and the name that he put it has stayed as synonymous.

Euphorbia margalidiana: it lives alone in an islet

The greater islet of Ses Margalides, located closely together of the coast the northwest of the Island of Ibiza, lodges a unique botanical treasure, the Euphorbia margalidiana, an extraordinary plant that was isolated on the islet after raising the level of the Mediterranean Sea million years ago and evolved undergoing diverse mutations to adapt to an extremely dry rocky habitat, whipped by strong winds, with a very little and salty substrate by the continue splashes of the marine water and an intense insolation without the protection of the minimum shade.

 Euphorbia margalidiana inflorescence at the end of March. I recommend to extend the photos with a double click to appreciate better the details.

Both islets of Ses Margalides. The little vegetation that can be seen on the greater islet is formed almost exclusively by about 200 adult units of Euphorbia margalidiana of until a meter of height. In the smaller islet any unit of this endemism does not live.

Islets of Ses Margalides closely together of the coast of Ibiza.

The arrow indicates the exact situation of Ses Margalides.

The Islets of Ses Margalides are located in the Western Mediterranean. About 6 million years ago, during the Messinian Period, the Mediterranean Basin was dried almost completely and what now they are two Islets surrounded by the water were then two great rocks integrated in the top of a mountain that comprised of the Betic-Rif Massif. After changing the climate and open the Straits of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean Sea filled again of water and what they were mountains became islands and islets, being isolated the ancestor of Euphorbia margalidiana of its congeners of Ibiza, that belonged surely to Euphorbia squamigera species. The isolation in so adverse conditions forcet it to adapt not to be extinguished.

All the photos that I show you belong to units worked in the magnificent Soller Botanical Garden, located in the Island of Majorca, because the access to Islets of Ses Margalides is prohibited by the law. In the image a vigorous unit of about 80 centimeters of height is seen initiating the spring flowering.

The leaves of Euphorbia margalidiana are great of up to 7 x2´5 centimeters, glaucous with a clearly green color slightly bluish, lanceolate, with the pointed apex, of whole margin and without no hairiness, that is to say, glabrous.

In order to adapt to the conditions of extreme drought of the islet the Euphorbia margalidiana underwent diverse mutations transforming its ligneous stem into suculent one accumulating in it the rainwater, since the cactus and the succulent plants do, to be able to support to the length, torrid and parched summer of Ibiza. In the image we see the succulent stem and the detail of the white line of raquis of the leaves. The tiny white small points are grain of pine pollen.

Underside of a leaf of a green color more clearly than the anverse.

The flowering begins at the end of March. The nectar produced by the five nectaries of the flowers likes much to the ants that are its pollenizers in the islet.

 Another pollenizer ant feeding on the rich nectar of a just opened flower.

Euphorbia margalidiana inflorescence. In the image we can see a small insect without wings, that I suspect that it could be a predator of ants.

Another inflorescence.

Image in detail with all the components of one of the five divisions that form the inflorescence. The five nectaries surround five masculine flowers without petals each by them reduced to simple stamen, who surround a unique feminine flower that it open in the end of a very heavy length pedicel and is trained by a trilocular ovary and in the end three feminine styles.

In the end of the feminine flower of the left we can see the three styles partially welded by their base and the warty surface of the trilocular o tricarpelar ovary which at maturity will result in a fruit with three compartments full of ellipsoid, smooth, compressed, dark gray or black seeds.

Euphorbia margalidiana is in serious danger of extinction by the reduced number of unit in the nature and the small area where it grows that it is reduced to the top of the greater islet of eight hectares. In order to avoid its extinction it is cultivated successfully in several botanical gardens as the Soller Botanical Garden and the Mar i Murtra Botanical Garden and conserve seeds in their Genebanks. It is protected by autonomic, national and international laws.