''Limonium ramosissimum'', the Algerian sea lavender, is a species of

sea lavender ''Limonium'' is a genus of 120 flowering plant species. Members are also known as sea-lavender, statice, caspia or marsh-rosemary. Despite their common names, species are not related to the lavenders or to rosemary. They are instead in Plumbag ...

(''Limonium'') native to the

Mediterranean region In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...

. Its specific epithet means "many-branched" in Latin.

Ecological characteristics

As a

halophyte A halophyte is a salt-tolerant plant that grows in soil or waters of high salinity, coming into contact with saline water through its roots or by salt spray, such as in saline semi-deserts, mangrove swamps, marshes and sloughs and seashores. Th ...

, ''Limonium ramosissimum'' has the ability to tolerate a wide range of salt levels ( salinity-tolerant) in the soil and also has the ability to actively lower the soil salinity by taking up and excreting salt through glands in the

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

, which are then free to break off and blow away. This could have the effect of changing the species composition of an area by reducing salinity in the soil.

Invasive species

These plants are also very fecund, producing many seeds, and are also able to compete with native flora. It has escaped cultivation and become an invasive species in salt marshes of California.

Subspecies

*''Limonium ramosissimum'' subsp. ''provinciale''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6549865 ramosissimum Halophytes