Cymbalaria
Cymbalaria in the Antalya basin
In the Antalya basin -
1. Cymbalaria longipes - This native is hairless well before flowering-time, even in shaded points, but when very young can have hairs on petioles and leaves (usually hairless though). When such young hairs are present, they seem to be very fine and straight-patent. (Seeds > 3.5mm, massed in a capsule that doesn't open.) Example. Note that the next one is not always hairy, or clearly so.
2. Cymbalaria acutiloba subsp. acutiloba - This native has hairs that persist into flowering when shaded and often conspicuously in the open. On the stems they are curled at maturity and also seem to be when young too though that needs more data: I have one where the young hairs seem to be straight-patent but seem rather dense to be longipes. It's clear though that the hairs are very variable with quantity and placing on stems and leaves even on the same plant and at times can seem absent, especially the more exposed the plant is, which means that appearing hairless does not definitively equate to longipes: it pays to check fully all the plants especially sheltered ones and sheltered parts. (Seeds ≤ 3mm, loose in a capsule that opens.) However there are some problems with the texts for this taxon. 1. There is a habitat discrepancy, in that the 2021 PDF says "occurs in the mountains of southwestern Anatolia" whereas this may be on low altitude rocks (quite hairy ones can be found just 30 m above sea level) although an older PDF has a looser "inland shadowed cliffs"; Flora of Turkey is much less fussy with its older C. microcalyx, giving "limestone rocks nr the coast, 30-700 m", but only speaks of subsp. dodekanesi vs. subsp. acutiloba. 2. These inland ones have spurs up to 8(9) mm which is vastly bigger than given for acutiloba, with a lower range on some of about (3)4 mm, presenting a much larger spur than Flora Europaea's microcalyx taxa (to 3 mm) or Flora of Turkey's microcalyx (2.5-4 mm). The 2021 PDF does say of C. microcalyx subsp. alba "a Peloponnese endemic that allegedly differs from C. microcalyx subsp. microcalyx by its white flowers, longer spur and smaller calyx" which of itself actually fits these rather well (though they may differ in other ways). Perhaps they could be something new given the apparent ability to speciate. Example (this showing the long spur problem).
Others - Potentially some gardened Cymbalaria may be rarely encountered -
3. C. muralis - I've seen this growing wild once in Antalya city and iNaturalist has some genuine examples sparsely dotted along the S coast of Turkey; it is hairless at maturity like longipes but :
STEMS readily go a strong purple (v greenish to greenish-purple) - although there is a dyeless cultivar that is wholly and distinctively yellowy-green as a plant with pure white flowers (just the 2 yellow marks for colour) however by lacking the protective dyes I suspect that cultivar is unlikely to be found due to the punishing Antalya sun and heat, even in Cumbria in W. Britain it seems to struggle much more than the normal dyed variety.
THE YELLOW on the two flower mounds is relatively small and only filling part of the two mounds (v large and fairly filling).
THE PURPLE FLOWER VEINS are usually rather fine (v quite thick).
THE SPUR/CALYX RATIO is near to 1, being 1.5-3 / 2-2.5 mm (v large, 2.5-4 / 0.1-1 mm, presumably reflected in the name longipes).
Example.
4. C. pallida - has flowers larger and more bullish, strongly purple flowers, its parts persistently short-hairy, and lacks runners. Example.
Further afield, other native taxa become choices, particularly -
5. C. paradoxa - an endemic from the small (12 km2) greek island Kastellorizo to the west, is densely hairy. (Seeds > 3.5mm, massed in a capsule that doesn't open.)
The above two main taxa (1 and 2) are taken from the map in the paper "Disentangling relationships among eastern Mediterranean Cymbalaria including description of a novel species from the southern Peloponnese (Greece)", 2021 by Pau Carnicero et al, where the key is on page 16, and it is clear that properly seeds are needed. There are some other older treatments on the web, particularly "Heterokarpidie, Dehiszenz, Heterospermie und basifixe Samen bei Cymbalaria HILL (Scrophulariaceae) und systematische Schlußfolgerungen", 1985 by Von Franz Speta, which is in German but has helpful fruit diagrams. For any seriously interesting finds @paucarnicero, the author of the 2021 paper, is on iNaturalist.
In practice seeds are not going to be posted on iNaturalist so I think where there is ambiguity the best thing is to recognise our limitations and just assign hairy taxa by geography and tick the need more info box so it doesn't go to RG, otherwise they will just be at genus level which isn't helpful.
I'm sure someone will come up with a paper on longipes-acutiloba hybridisation/transitionals or other new acutiloba-like taxa to muddy the identification of the natives.
Capsules and Seeds
The following describes the seeds for longipes, acutiloba, paradoxa and dodekanesi, as these are the confusable species, derived from the 2021 PDF.
The seeds have a surface covered in deep polygonal craters whose rims form irregular fingers with either blunt or pointed tips (dodekanesi may just be the rim lacking fingers); the seeds may be loose (each appearing globose) or glued together in a mass displaying these finger-edged craters. The seed sizes include the fact that seeds are of varying size within the capsule (in dodekanesi they decrease toward the capsule tip, in the other three size placement is irregular). An example of C. muralis capsule before and after splitting can be seen here although it seems to me the capsules of the following tend to be rather hard to discern due to the persistence of the flower and the general need to coil back away from the light and plant the seeds onto the rock surface.
• Capsule doesn't open, seeds big (> 3.5mm), forming joined masses
longipes - plant hairless at maturity (immature plants may have fine inconspicuous hairs), the massed fingers blunt-tipped, seeds 3.5–5.6 mm long, 2-6 per capsule (pics 1986 p18 t-u)
paradoxa - (small island to west) plant conspicuously hairy, seeds 3.8-4.6 mm, 4-6 per 8-9 mm capsule (pic 2021 p10 g-i)
• Capsule opens, seeds small (≤ 3mm), generally well separated (capsule 2.5–6 mm)
acutiloba subsp. acutiloba - fingers pointed (triangular) tipped, seeds 2-3 mm, "few" (to 10?) per capsule (pics 1986 p18 n-o ?j-m); perhaps the 'acutiloba' arose from the tips of the seed fingers.
acutiloba subsp. dodekanesi - (far west) fingers blunt tipped, or craters unfingered, seeds 0.9-3.3 mm, 8-14 per capsule (pic 2021 p10 j-l, 1986 p18 h-i)
Map
This map of natives is from the 2021 PDF, click the image to view it more clearly -
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