Amethyst broomrape

Appearance

20-50 cm plant, hairy-glandulous
- purplish-red stem, not or barely swollen at the base
- 2-3 cm scales
- 15-22 mm flowers, erect-spreading then spreading, in a dense acuminate and hairy spike
- bracts protruding from the flowers
- narrow sepals, weakly veined, equaling the tube of the corolla
- the latter whitish washed and veined with lilac, glabrescent, with a tube abruptly bent towards the lower third then spreading out, with a bilobed upper lip, the lower with slightly unequal non-ciliated lobes
- filaments inserted at 3-4 mm, puberulous at the base, glabrous above
- reddish stigma. Varies with wide multi-veined sepals, regularly arcuate corolla not lilaceous.
Flowering June-July.

Distribution

It occurs throughout the southern Mediterranean region, Western Europe, and into parts of Central Europe.