''Digitalis transiens'' is a species of flowering plant in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family or veronica family, is a large, diverse family (biology), family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as Antirrhinum, snapdragon and Digitalis, foxglove. It is unrelated ...

which is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. It was recently also classified as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''D. subalpina''. It has yellow flowers with woolly hairs on its lip and throat. The corolla length is 11 to 13mm.

Taxonomy

A specimen of ''Digitalis transiens'' collected at around 2,000 metres in altitude near Aït Mesan in the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. They separate the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range, which stretches around through M ...

by Johannes Justus Rein and

Karl Fritsch Karl Fritsch (24 February 1864 – 17 January 1934) was an Austrian botanist. He was a specialist on the Gesneriaceae and the taxonomy of monocots. Biography Fritsch was born in Vienna, the son of meteorologist Karl Fritsch, and educated ...

during their excursion to Morocco in the early 1870s had been misidentified as ''D. atlantica'', and using that misidentification, in 1878 the Irish botanist John Ball then synonymised ''D. atlantica'' to ''D. lutea'' in error. It took until 1940 before the French botanist

René Maire René Charles Joseph Ernest Maire (; 29 May 1878, Lons-le-Saunier – 24 November 1949) was a French botanist and mycologist. His major work was the ''Flore de l'Afrique du Nord'' in 16 volumes published posthumously in 1953. He collected plants ...

described it as a new species, but it has since had a confused and turbulent taxonomic history. Karol Marhold in 2011 in the ''Euro+Med Plantbase'', for example, does not even recognise the species, but does include two different taxa both called ''D. atlantica'', the correct one endemic to

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

, and the other Moroccan one without authority attribution presumably being ''D. transiens''.

Description

Based on Ball's 1878 description, it is distinguished from ''Digitalis lutea'' by having smaller, more abundant flowers, and the leaves in the

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

being somewhat

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

-like.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q50991488 transiens Flora of Morocco Plants described in 1940 Taxa named by René Maire