Onosma Don

The life form is hemicryptophyte.

A shrub of 10–35 cm tall with numerous flower-bearing stems and sterile shoots. The stems are whitish from the pressed pubescence of bristles and hairs, densely coarsened.

Leaves lanceolate, with curled edges, densely covered with pressed setae and short hairs.

Inflorescences are simple or double curled. The flowers are right. Calyx lanceolate, free parts lanceolate-linear, up to 9 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. Corollas are spontaneous, 15-19 (20) mm long, pale yellow, tubular funnel-shaped, glabrous (except for teeth). It blooms in May - July.

Pedicels up to 6 mm long. The fruit is decaying, the nuts are smooth. Fruits in July - August. Propagated mainly by seeds ^[4] .

Eastern European steppe species. Endemic . Distributed in southwestern Russia and eastern Ukraine.

It grows in the river basins of Seversky Donets and Don , in their middle and lower reaches.

Distributed in Ukraine in the Seversky Donets and Priazovye basin - along the Krynka and Sukhaya Volnovakha rivers. The range covers Donetsk , Lugansk and Kharkov regions .

It grows on open eroded Cretaceous , Marl and limestone exfoliation slopes, sands , granites ; occasionally in forests and sandstones .

Guard Status

In the Russian Federation, the species is listed in the Red Book of Rostov , Belgorod , Kursk regions ^[5] .

Onosma Don entered in the Red Book of Ukraine ( environmental status - "Invaluable" ^{[ unknown term ]} ), Red Book of Donetsk region.

It is protected in the Cretaceous Flora department of the Ukrainian Steppe Nature Reserve , the Streltsovskaya Steppe branch of the Lugansk Nature Reserve , the Svyatye Gory National Nature Park , in the Kleban-Byk regional landscape park, on the territory of the Balka Gorkaya nature monument of national importance ( Donetsk region) and other territories of the nature reserve fund .

Grow alone or in small groups. In the tract Pristenskoye , Balka Gorky high population. In the Streltsovskaya Steppe branch and the Holy Mountains National Nature Park, the population is low, but the structure is full-bodied.

The number decreases due to the destruction of natural places of growth due to cattle grazing, plowing of steppe virgin lands, afforestation on slopes, development of rocks , haying, etc.

• Onosma Don Onosma tanaitica Klokov (O. simplicissima auct. Non L.) - Red Book of Ukraine, 2009.
• Red Book of the Donetsk region: plant world (plants to be protected in the Donetsk region) / Under the general. ed. V.M. Ostapko. - M.: New Press, 2009 .-- S. 183.