Vern.: Piunphuli

A. gayana Boiss., Fl. Or. 3: 313. 1875; Burkill, l. c. 57; A. gayana Boiss. var. multiramosa Parsa in Kew Bull. 2: 200. 1948.

A small annual, up to 25 cm tall, appressed grayish hairy herb with suberect branches. Leaves cauline, shortly petiolate, lamina ovate, 15 – 20 x 6 – 10 mm, 1-2-pinnatisect into 2-3 mm long, acute ultimate segments. Peduncles filiform, 8 – 10 cm long, slightly thickened upwards in fruit. Capitula radiate, 10 – 12 mm across. Phyllaries oblong, 2 – 3 x c. 1 mm, appressed hairy outside, broadly membranous-margined, obtuse, deciduous. Receptacle conical, c. 2 mm long, chaffy in the upper half, paleae subulate, 2.5 – 3 x 0.5 mm, hyaline, deciduous. Ray-florets 5 – 6, female, fertile, ligules white, elliptic, 4 – 5 x 3 – 4 mm, tridentate at the apices. Disc-florets yellow, c. 2 mm long, corolla tube terete, ± inflated in the fruit. Cypselas cylindrical, 2.5 – 3 mm long, ± curved, 10-15-ribbed, outer tuberculate-muricate, deciduous, with a 10-15-dentate rim, the inner ones with a unilateral, oblique, ± lacerate auricle.

Fl. Per.: April-May

Holotype: Habitat in collibus et rupestribus Persiae australis circa Persepolin et prope Gere, Th. Kotschy 51 (G) Isotype (LE).

Common in sandy-clay soil mixed with gravel and stones in shallow depressions near wadi edges or moist soil; Distribution: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and UAE.

Sometimes divided in two varieties on the basis of the thickness of fruiting peduncle, but the variation seems to be more or less continuous. The leaves are eaten raw to cure pain in the chest.