Anguillicarpus Burkill
Annual herbs, branched, erect, tall, glabrous, or sparsely papillose. Leaves narrowly linear; lower pinnatipartite or sinuate-toothed; upper ± entire, sessile or subsessile. Racemes lax, few flowered, ebracteate. Flowers small, yellowish-whitish or yellowish-lilac; pedicel filiform, elongated, ± deflexed in fruit. Sepals not saccate, narrowly oblong. Petals linear, more than twice as long as the sepals. Stamens 6; filaments linear, free, or those of inner four sometimes connate at the base in pairs; anthers of smaller outer stamens short, blunt, often sterile, those of inner four long, acute and fertile. Lateral nectar glands almost semi-annular, open towards the inner side; middle ones present, joining the laterals, thickened in the middle. Ovary narrowly ellipsoid, 2-ovuled, with almost equally long, sterile, narrowly cylindrical apical part ending in short, sub-bilobed stigma. Fruit spindle-shaped, with narrow, elongated, often vriously curved, slender ends; body unilocular, indehiscent; valves thickened, terete, rugose; seed 1, oblong; radicle incumbent.
A monotypic genus in C. and W.Asia, Iran and Pakistan.
