Plantago lanceolata L.

Global description

Plantago lanceolata is an herbaceous plant, with long leaves in dense rosette at the base. The plant has a vigorous taproot. The leaves are yellowish green. They are narrow, lance-shaped. The lamina, slightly hairy, is covered with almost parallel veins, very conspicuous. The first leaves have most of the time an entire border, which discreetly cut into small tines for the following. The flowers are grouped in cylindrical spike at the end of a long vertical peduncle, brownish exceeding the rosette leaves. From these spikes emerge long yellowish stamens.
 
Cotyledons
 
The cotyledons are large, 20 to 45 mm long and 1 mm wide, they are filiform, sessile, fleshy, and glabrous.
 
First leaves
 
The first leaves are alternate, simple; they are first erect and then subside gradually in prostrate rosette. They are sessile, lanceolate, first narrow and exclusive, then wider and inconspicuously denticulate. The venations are clearly visible, arcuate to parallel, deeply recorded in the lamina and projecting on the underside. The hairs is of varying intensity.
 
General habit
 
Perennial, always staying in rosette. The inflorescence is 10 to 60 cm high.
 
Underground system
 
The plant has a primary taproot, then a short vertical rhizome forms, from which grow numerous fibrous roots.
 
Stem
 
The stem is reduced to a vertical short rhizome under the soil surface. The axis of the inflorescence is splined to 5 furrows and is pubescent to glabrescent.
 
Leaf
 
The leaves are alternate, simple, arranged in rosette. They are sessile. The lamina is lanceolate, gradually attenuated in petiole at the base and with acute or apiculate apex. The margin is serrated. The faces are marked by 5 to 7 parallel arcuate ribs, very prominent on the underside. The hairiness of the two sides is variable.
 
Inflorescence
 
The inflorescence is a spike at the end of a pubescent or glabrescent peduncle, with 5 furrows, reaching up to 60 cm high. The spike is ovoid to cylindrical, 2 to 6 cm long and 1 cm wide, consisting of discrete flower, whitishin colour.
 
 
Flower
 
Each flower is sub-tended by an oval acuminate bract, 3 mm long. The calyx consists of 4 sepals, 3 mm long, the two ventral being fused to an edge. The summit is topped with a small tuft of hairs. The corolla consists of four petals fused in a tube at the base and terminating in four acute lanceolate lobes. It is brownish, clearly exceeded by 4 long yellowish white stamens, whose filament is 8 to 12 mm long.
 
Fruit
 
The fruit is a dehiscent capsule, oblong, 3 to 4 mm long, topped the rest of the style. It opens with an operculum higher than half the capsule. Two loculus, each containing one seed.
 
Seed
 
Seed oblong, canaliculate, 2.5 to 3 mm long. The seed coat is smooth and glabrous, light brown.

Origin

Plantago lanceolata is native to the whole of Mediterranean and temperate Europe.

Worldwide distribution

This species is now present in all temperate, subtropical and tropical highlands. It does not occur in the warm inter-tropical regions.

https://www.gbif.org/fr/species/8208358