A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH

An erect glabrous annual or sometimes perennating herb up to 40 cm tall, but more commonly 15-30 cm tall, often much-branched from the base. Stem-leaves alternate, senile or subsessile; leaf-blades linear to linear-lanceolate, 1.5-8 cm x 1.5-5 mm, acute, subacute or obtuse at the apex, tapered to the base, entire or subentire, palminerved. Pseudumbel 3-rayed, the rays many times bifid, usually with a few axillary rays below the pseudumbel; pseudumbel-leaves and ray-leaves resembling the stem-leaves. Cyathia shortly pedunculate. Glands 2-homed, greenish. Fruit roundly trilobate, 3 x 3.5 mm, smooth, pale green. Styles ± erect, united at the base, 1 mm long, bifsd. Seeds ovoid, 2.5 x 1.75 x 1.5 mm, shallowly tuberculate-rugulose, dark grey between the whitish ridges and tubercles, with a minute white peltate camncle.

Fl. Per.: Nov. - April; Fr. Per.: Feb. - May.

Holotype: Mauritius, P. Commerson 545 (P-LA).

Distribution: The typical subspecies in Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Arabia, Afghanistan, India, Tropical Africa and the Mascarenes; four other subspecies occur in NW Africa and S. Spain. A common weed in cultivated and sandy fields from sea-level to 2500'/7760 m.