''Digitalis transiens'' is a species of flowering plant in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family, is a large, diverse family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as snapdragon and foxglove. It is unrelated to the banana-like fruit also called "plantain." In older cl ...

which is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. It was recently also classified as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of ''D. subalpina''. It has yellow flowers with woolly hairs on its lip and throat, the corolla length is 11 to 13mm.

Taxonomy

A specimen of ''Digitalis transiens'' collected at around 2,000 metres in altitude near Aït Mesan in the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around through Moroc ...

Johannes Justus Rein Johannes Justus Rein (27 January 1835 in Raunheim, near Giessen – 23 January 1918 in Bonn) was a German geographer, author and traveler in East Asia. On the title page of each of his books, his name is given as either J.J. Rein or Johann J. ...

and

Karl Fritsch Karl Fritsch (24 February 1864 – 17 January 1934) was an Austrian botany, botanist. He was born in Vienna and educated mainly at the University of Vienna, obtaining his PhD degree in 1886 and his Habilitation in 1890. In 1900 he moved to ...

during their excursion to Morocco in the early 1870s had been misidentified as ''D. atlantica'', and using that misidentification, in 1878 the Irish botanist John Ball then synonymised ''D. atlantica'' to ''D. lutea'' in error. It took until 1940 before the French botanist

René Maire René Charles Joseph Ernest Maire (29 May 1878, Lons-le-Saunier – 24 November 1949) was a French botanist and mycologist. His major work was the ''Flore de l'Afrique du Nord'' in 16 volumes published posthumously in 1953. He collected plants fro ...

described it as a new species, but it has since had a confused and turbulent taxonomic history. Karol Marhold in 2011 in the ''Euro+Med Plantbase'', for example, does not even recognise the species, but does include two different taxa both called ''D. atlantica'', the correct one endemic to

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

, and the other Moroccan one without authority attribution presumably being ''D. transiens''.

Description

Based on Ball's 1878 description, it is distinguished from ''Digitalis lutea'' by having smaller, more abundant flowers, and the leaves in the

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

being somewhat

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 ...

-like.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q50991488 transiens Flora of Morocco Plants described in 1940 Taxa named by René Maire