Anastatica hierochuntica Illustration Credit: Azmat

Small annual herbs, branched mostly from the base with short branches, densely pubescent with stellate appressed hairs. Leaves simple, spathulate, distantly and shallowly lobed to entire. Flowers minute, white, subsessile, axillary. Sepals not saccate at base. Petals spathulate. Stamens 6; filaments linear. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, each semilunar; middle absent. Ovary globose; bilocular with 2 ovules in each locule; style about as long as the ovary. Siliculae short, ovate bilocular with lateral, somewhat cup-shaped appendages (wings) at the apex, densely pubescent with stellate hairs, indehiscent when dry, but dehiscing when wet; style becoming subulate and thick; septum thick, brownish; seeds 4, ovoid, brownish; radicle accumbent.

A monotypic genus in N. Africa, Arabia, eastward to Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Anastatica hierochuntica Linn.