Zosima (plant)
Zosima is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Apiaceae.
Its native range stretches from Afghanistan, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Sinai, Syria and Turkey, ; Saudi Arabia, to North Caucasus and Transcaucasus, ; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, ; Xinjiang and Pakistan.
Description
They are herbaceous plants, biennial or monocarpic perennials. They have thick, yellow-red roots that are fusiform. The stem is usually solitary, densely pubescent, angled, corymbose-branched. The base of the stem is clothed in fibrous remnant sheaths. It has 1-2 leaves that are pinnatisect. The upper leaves are narrowly elliptic. The flower or inflorescence is compound umbels. They have 10-25 rays. The bracts and bracteoles are present, and linear to lanceolate. The flowers are hermaphrodite with calyx teeth minute. The petals are whitish, obcordate, with a narrow apex, inflexed and the outer petals are slightly enlarged. The fruit is broadly ovate, strongly dorsally compressed, densely minute-pubescent. The dorsal ribs are filiform with the marginal ribs broadly thin-winged. The distal parts are inflated and corky. The outer mesocarp layer is parenchymatous and the inner layer is sclerified. The vittae are large, 1 in each furrow, 2 on commissure. The seed face is plane with a carpophore 2-parted to base.The plants are close in form to Heracleum but the fruit differ.
The plants can be affected by parasites such as Erysiphe heraclei, Acmaeoderella gibbosula and Acmaeoderella villosula and also Bruchophagus gibbus.
Known species
There are 4 accepted species, by Plants of the World Online and others, including Y. Menemen and S.L. Jury;Taxonomy
The genus name of Zosima is in honour of Nikolaos Zosima, Anastasios Zosima and Zois Zosima, all were Greek-Russian brothers and merchants in Moscow, who supported naturalists.It was first described and published in Gen. Pl. Umbell. on page 145 in 1814.
The genus is recognized by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Research Service, but they only list 1 known species, Zosima absinthiifolia.