Annual or biennial, short, branched herb, (5-) 15-30 cm long, decumbent or suberect, often densely hispid below and pubescent above with simple and branched hairs. Basal leaves rosulate, very variable, oblanceolate or oblong, lobulate to sinuate-dentate, 2-10 cm long, 5-15 mm broad, shortly stalked to subsessile or sessile. Racemes 20-40-flowered, subspicate, up to 20 cm long in fruit, Flowers large, 10-15 mm across, deep reddish to almost whitish; pedicels 2-3 (-4) mm long in fruit, slightly to much thickened, very variable. Sepals 3-5 mm long. Petals 10-15 mm long, 1.2- 2 (-2.5) mm broad, often with wavy margins. Stamens c. 3:5 mm long. Siliquae (10-) 15-25 (-30) mm long, c. 2 mm broad, linear-terete, much tapering towards the apex, very variable in size and hairiness, often strigose below, slightly curved; stigma c. 1 mm long, conical; seeds c. 1 mm long, oblong, brownish.
Fl. Per.: March-May.
Type: Afghanistan, Kabul, Pushut, Griffith (K, G, LE).
Distribution: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A very variable taxon in stature, hairiness, siliquae size, pedicel size and thickness, but long, narrow, ± reddish petals on spicate racemes are very distinctive characters. Malcolmia longipetala Gilli (in Fedde, Repert. 57: 223. 1955), with pale yellowish or whitish flowers, may not be specifically different from it. The last cited specimen above (S. Abedin 4801) reaches very close to it. Kitamura (1.c.) recorded it for Pakistan without citing any spcimen.
