Eryngium maritimum
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''Eryngium maritimum'', the sea holly or sea eryngo, or sea eryngium, is a
perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
species of flowering plant in the family
Apiaceae Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants ...
and native to most
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an coastlines. It resembles a plume thistle in appearance on account of its burr-shaped flower. Despite its common name, it is not related to true
holly ''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...
, but is an
umbellifer Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants ...
.


Etymology

''E. maritimum'' was formally described by
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
in his
Species Plantarum ' (Latin for "The Species of Plants") is a book by Carl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists every species of plant known at the time, classified into genera. It is the first work to consistently apply binomial names and was the ...
I: 233 (1753). The generic name ''Eryngium'' derives from Greek and may have developed from a description of the plant by
Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledge ...
(300 BC), who referred to it as “Eryngion”, meaning a spiny plant. Alternatively, the name may have derived from the Greek word “eruggarein”, meaning to eructate (belch), since the plant was used to treat various disorders such as trapped gases. The
specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
''maritimum'' means “of the sea”. The common English name appears to date from the 16th century. In his 1548 publication ''The Names of Herbes'', the naturalist William Turner stated that “Eryngium is named in englishe sea Hulver or sea Holly”.


Taxonomy

Although hybrids of ''E. maritimum'' have been reported, they are relatively few. For example, records have been made of a hybrid between ''E. maritimum'' and '' E. campestre'' (=Eryngium 9 rocheri Corb. ex Guétrot) in France, and in the region of Valencia, Spain. The species’ chromosome number is 2n = 16 Tutin TG. 1980. ''Umbellifers of the British Isles''. Botanical Society of the British Isles Handbook No. 2, London. .


Description

Sea holly is a glabrous, intensely glaucous, clump-forming perennial growing to around 60 cm tall. It is also a slightly succulent
xerophyte A xerophyte (from Ancient Greek language, Greek ξηρός ''xeros'' 'dry' + φυτόν ''phuton'' 'plant') is a species of plant that has adaptations to survive in an environment with little liquid water, such as a desert such as the Sahara or pl ...
with a deep well-developed root system and waxy leaf cuticles. The leaves are stiff, spiny, and leathery. The basal leaves, which measure 5 – 15 cm long and are rolled when young,Poland J, Clement EJ. 2009. ''The Vegetative Key to the British Flora''. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. are palmately 3-lobed and suborbicular, truncate, or cordate at the base. The stem leaves are similar, but are smaller, sessile, and palmate. All leaves have thick cartilaginous margins, with often purplish veins and stomata on both sides. The petiole is channeled and dilated at the base. The cotyledons are abruptly contracted into a petiole. The flowers are bluish white and measure 8mm across, in 1.5 – 2.5 cm heads The
bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...
s are spiny, and the
bracteole In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...
s are longer than the flowers. The sepals measure 4 – 5 mm and are longer than the petals. The fruit is 13 – 15 mm, more or less uncompressed and covered in stigmatic papillae which become longer towards the apex. The styles are about 6 mm long, divergent to somewhat recurved. It flowers June to September.


Identification

Apart from its specific coastal habitat, sea holly may also be distinguished from its congeners by the deeper, strongly spiny teeth on the basal leaves and stem leaves.


Distribution

Throughout its range, sea holly is a coastal species, occurring locally and almost continuously along the coastlines of England and Ireland. In Great Britain, it is most abundant on the south and west coasts, but now largely extinct from the coasts of northeast England and Scotland on a local scale; however, it may have once been more common and widespread here Isermann M, Rooney P. 2014. Biological Flora of the British Isles: ''Eryngium maritimum''. ''Journal of Ecology'' 102: 789 – 821. It was formerly extant in
Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...
, but never properly established here at the northernmost limit of its native range. The last Shetland record was made from
Fitful Head Fitful Head is a headland at the southwest corner of Mainland, Shetland, Scotland, some northwest of the island's southernmost point at Sumburgh Head. Its summit is crowned by a trig point adjacent to a NATS installation served by a restricted a ...
in 1884, where the plant probably once grew extensively on the sands of the Bay of Quendale In Europe and adjacent parts of northern Africa and the Middle East, the plant has a wide native distribution. In these regions, it occurs on the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
, the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas as well as the Black and Azov Seas. The distribution also extends northwards into Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Lativa, and Estonia, along the
Skagerrak The Skagerrak (, , ) is a strait running between the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, the southeast coast of Norway and the west coast of Sweden, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area through the Danish Straits to the Baltic Sea. The ...
and the Swedish islands of
Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...
and Oland. The Scandinavian distribution is relatively southerly, extending only as far north as southern Norway and Sweden Sea holly has been introduced to parts of eastern North America, where it was once valued as an ornamental plant for seashore restoration. It has also been introduced to Australia with plantings of
marram grass ''Ammophila'' (synonymous with ''Psamma'' P. Beauv.) is a genus of flowering plants consisting of two or three very similar species of grasses. The common names for these grasses include marram grass, bent grass, and beachgrass. These grasses ar ...
.


Habitat and Ecology

Sea holly characteristically grows on the well-drained substrates of sand dunes and shingles confined to regions with mild winters. More rarely, it may be found growing on rocky coasts featuring patches of sand between artificial hard coastal protection features with a similar structure to shingle. In northern Britain, its distribution is limited by the lack of suitable dune systems to grow on It withstands the harsh environmental conditions typical of beaches and coastal dune habitats worldwide; namely low soil nutrient levels, frost, strong salty winds, high temperatures and insolation, and periodic sand burial. Sea holly is associated with various shingle and strandline communities, where it may be scattered within the vegetation. On shingles, sea holly occurs within Honckenya peploides-Cakile maritima strandline community above the tidal limit Rodwell JS (ed.). 2000. ''British Plant Communities. Vol. 5. Maritime Communities and Vegetation of Open Habitats''. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK On dunes, sea holly may be found growing in the Elymus farctus ssp. boreali-atlanticus foredune community, the pioneer vegetation on foredunes, with ''Elytrigia juncea'' (E. farctus) as a dominant species. Sea holly is a poor competitor that generally thrives in open areas, declining when habitats are invaded by shrubby species such as ''
Rosa rugosa ''Rosa rugosa'' (rugosa rose, beach rose, Japanese rose, Ramanas rose, or letchberry) is a species of rose native to eastern Asia, in northeastern China, Japan, Korea and southeastern Siberia, where it grows on beach coasts, often on sand dunes. ...
'', ''
Hippophae rhamnoides ''Hippophae rhamnoides'', also known as sea-buckthorn, is a species of flowering plant in the family Elaeagnaceae, native to the cold-temperate regions of Europe and Asia. It is a spiny deciduous shrub. The plant is used in the food and cosmetic ...
'', '' Elaeagnus commutata'' and ''
Salix repens ''Salix repens'', the creeping willow, is a small, shrubby species of willow in the family Salicaceae, growing up to 1.5metres in height. Found amongst sand dunes and heathlands, it is a polymorphic species, with a wide range of variants. In ...
'' due to substantial shading effects This is because sea holly is a light-demanding plant, although it is protected against water stress through excessive insolation thanks to its succulent equifacial leaves. Sea holly has deep, well-developed
taproots A taproot is a large, central, and dominant root from which other roots sprout laterally. Typically a taproot is somewhat straight and very thick, is tapering in shape, and grows directly downward. In some plants, such as the carrot, the taproo ...
for water storage, allowing the plant to survive long dry periods that may occur in its habitat. The root system also shows a high degree of plasticity in response to the dynamics of coastal ecosystems and may consequently develop a rhizome-like structure. For example, in response to permanent sand burial, the root
internodes A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, stores nutrien ...
gradually lengthen in such a way that the perennating buds are brought closer to the ground surface for ensuring the plants' survival throughout the growing seasons.


Status

Despite a widespread native European distribution, populations of this species have been declining substantially in the northern parts of its range, with some of these already having become extinct. It is now threatened or endangered in most European countries and included in endangered plant lists and
Red Data Books The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...
of several of these countries In Britain, its historic decline may be at least partly attributable to being dug up from the wild on account of its popularity as an ornamental plant in gardens on dry soils.


In culture, use and relationship with humans

Like other species in the genus, ''E. maritimum'' has been traditionally consumed to combat various ailments, especially thanks to the plant’s high
antioxidant Antioxidants are compounds that inhibit oxidation, a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. This can lead to polymerization and other chain reactions. They are frequently added to industrial products, such as fuels and lubricant ...
activity and content of
phenolic Phenolic is an adjective and a substantive (noun) that may apply to : * Phenol (or carbolic acid), a colorless crystalline solid and aromatic compound * Phenols, a class of chemical compounds that include phenol * Phenolic content in wine * Phenol ...
and
flavonoid Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...
compounds. It has been utilised for its
diuretic A diuretic () is any substance that promotes diuresis, the increased production of urine. This includes forced diuresis. A diuretic tablet is sometimes colloquially called a water tablet. There are several categories of diuretics. All diuretics in ...
,
stimulant Stimulants (also often referred to as psychostimulants or colloquially as uppers) is an overarching term that covers many drugs including those that increase activity of the central nervous system and the body, drugs that are pleasurable and inv ...
, cystotonic, stone inhibitor,
aphrodisiac An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire, sexual attraction, sexual pleasure, or sexual behavior. Substances range from a variety of plants, spices, foods, and synthetic chemicals. Natural aphrodisiacs like cannabis or cocain ...
,
expectorant Mucoactive agents are a class of chemical agents that aid in the clearance of mucus or sputum from the upper and lower airways, including the lungs, bronchi, and trachea. Mucoactive drugs include expectorants, mucolytics, mucoregulators, and muco ...
and
anthelmintic Anthelmintics or antihelminthics are a group of antiparasitic drugs that expel parasitic worms (helminths) and other internal parasites from the body by either stunning or killing them and without causing significant damage to the host. They may a ...
properties Moreover, essential oils, extracted by hydro-distillation, from the aerial parts of the plant have been found to contain oxygenated
sesquiterpenes Sesquiterpenes are a class of terpenes that consist of three isoprene units and often have the molecular formula C15H24. Like monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes may be cyclic or contain rings, including many unique combinations. Biochemical modificatio ...
with antimicrobial activity against ''
E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...
'' and '' L. monocytogenes''. The roots of ''E. maritimum'' were formerly candied as a sweetmeat and recommended by
Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of ''De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vol ...
as a remedy for
flatulence Flatulence, in humans, is the expulsion of gas from the intestines via the anus, commonly referred to as farting. "Flatus" is the medical word for gas generated in the stomach or bowels. A proportion of intestinal gas may be swallowed environm ...
. The young shoots may also be eaten like asparagus. Sea holly has often been represented in paintings and other artwork, such as in works by Irish artist Patrick O’Hara and on postage stamp prints such as the 1967 one-franc stamp in
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, and the 25-pfennig stamp in Germany The plant has also been mentioned in various plays and poems, most notably in the
Merry Wives of Windsor ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' or ''Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a ref ...
by
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and in the
Italian Journey ''Italian Journey'' (in the German original: ) is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's report on his travels to Italy from 1786 to 1788 that was published in 1816 & 1817. The book is based on Goethe's diaries and is smoothed in style, lacks the sponta ...
by
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
. They are named in a speech by
Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...
: Sea holly was nominated the 2002
County flower In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. Different processes have been used to ...
for the city of
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
.Plantlife. Sea Holly. Available at https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/discover-wild-plants-nature/plant-fungi-species/sea-holly (accessed 03/10/2022) Asteroid 199194 Calcatreppola was named after this plant. The official was published by the
Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...
on 25 September 2018 ().


Gallery

File:Mikołajek nadmorski RB1.jpg, On the shore of the Mediterranean Sea near the mouth of Dalyan River, Turkey File:Eryngium maritimum 1.jpg, Whole plant, Meia Praia beach, Lagos, Portugal File:Eryngium maritimum 2.jpg, Flowers, Meia Praia beach,
Lagos, Portugal Lagos (; literally "lakes"; cel-x-proto, Lacobriga) is a city and municipality at the mouth of Bensafrim River and along the Atlantic Ocean, in the Barlavento region of the Algarve, in southern Portugal. The population of the municipality in 201 ...
File:Mikolajek nadmorski R51 ubt.jpeg, In
Rewa, Poland Rewa () is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kosakowo, within Puck County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northern Poland. It lies approximately north of Kosakowo, south-east of Puck, and north of the regional capital Gdańsk. It ...
File:Eryngium maritimum-01 (xndr).jpg, Close-up of inflorescence File:Eryngium maritimum MHNT.BOT.2008.1.8.jpg, MHNT botanical specimen File:Eryngium maritimum 2-Αγγελοχώρι.jpg, In Aggelohori, Greece


References


External links

*
Plants for a Future—PFAF Plant Database: ''Eryngium maritimum'' (Sea Holly)

Schutzstation-wattenmeer.de: Further information and images

Linnaeus.nrm.se; Den virtuelle floran: ''Distribution map''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q21110 maritimum Flora of Europe Flora of Lebanon Flora of Ukraine Medicinal plants of Europe Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus