Annual branched perennial 45 cm or more tall, strigosely hairy, with some hairs arising from a bulbous base. Stem 3-5 mm thick at base, erect to suberect. Leaves lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 20-55 x 5-16 mm, hairy, undulate, nerves impressed above with short strigose hairs. Inflorescence 30-60 mm long, usually terminal with uniseriate flowers. Calyx c. 2.5 mm long, 5-partite, hairy; lobes ovate-lanceolate; Corolla white, 3-3.5 mm long, lobes obtuse-undulate. Anthers narrow ovate, 1 mm long, sessile, attached c. 1.1 mm above the corolla base. Stigma 1.1 mm long, conical, glabrous, sometimes minutely 2-fid at apex, base lobed, style shorter than stigma. Ovary globose. Fruit subglobose, 4-lobed. Nutlets 2 mm long, not margined, separating at maturity, back with strigose hairs, obscurely rugulose.

Fl. Per.: January-April.

Type: ‘Habitat in arenis prope Tozzer et Elhammah’, Coll. Ignot. (P).

Distribution: Senegal, N. Africa, Arabia, Iraq, Trans Jordon, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India.

Variable in size of the plant and its pubescence.