Cherleria dirphya
Cherleria dirphya is a rare species of plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is endemic to Mt. Dirfi on Evvia in Greece. It is restricted to the higher peaks of this single mountain on an island with many endemic plant species. Its natural habitat is Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Description
Minuartia dirphya is a hairless perennial herb that grows in loose, tufted clumps from a woody base. It produces two distinct stem types: short, non-flowering shoots up to 4.5 cm long bearing dense bundles of straight, rigid, narrow leaves 4–9 mm long with three prominent, and taller flowering stems 4–16 cm long that lack leaf bundles and carry 8–14 pairs of similar leaves which decrease in length toward the tip. On flowering stems, leaves below the midpoint measure 3.5–11.0 mm—up to twice as long as the stem segments —while those above measure 1.8–7.0 mm, up to two-thirds as long as the internodes.The loose flower cluster bears one to eleven flowers on slender stalks 1.5–8 mm long. Each flower has five green, 2.6–5.0 mm long and distinctly three-veined with narrow translucent margins, and five white, 1.8–3.8 mm long, narrowly elliptic to almost linear and equal to or shorter than the sepals. The arise from a fleshy green disc at the base of the and carry that range in colour from creamy-pink to dark purple. Fruits are oblong-ovoid capsules 3.6–5.5 mm long—slightly longer than the sepals—and contain up to four brown, triangular-kidney-shaped seeds 1.5–1.9 mm long; the seed surface bears small bumps chiefly along the dorsal ridge.