Kochia griffithii Bunge ex Boiss., Fl Or. 4: 924. 1879.

Annual or biennial herb, up to 2 m, softly villous or pubescent, stem pale, brown to yellowish, with many spreading branches from the base and distant leaves. Leaves 5-15 (-30) x 1-5 mm, lanceolate, oblong or linear, entire, acute or sub-acuminate at apex, cuneate-sessile or subsessile, soft hairy to sub-glabrous. Flowering branches usually whitish with scattered, 1-3-flowered clusters arranged in loose, leafy spikes; bracts linear, leaf-like, longer than clusters, softly hairy. Perianth ± woolly, connivent and up to 3 mm in fruit; shortly winged or not, at the back with the variable wing shape, rudimentary (or supressed) to triangular ovate to sub-orbicular, up to 1 mm long or in diameter, scarious; seed c. 2 mm in diameter.

Fl. Per.: July-October.

Type: India, Coimbatore, Wight 2479 (K).

Distribution: N.Africa, Sudan, S.W.Asia to Pakistan and India.

A variable species. Some specimens cited above from Baluchistan are larger and very densely brown canescent; this may be K. cana Bunge ex Boiss. (Fl. Or.4: 924.1879) - which Stewart (l.c.225) considered doubtful.