S. NAZIMUDDIN AND M. QAISER
Cucularia Kuntze
Erect, small annual herbs, branched basally. Stem hispid or glabrous, quadrangular. Leaves verticillate, 4 in a whorl, ovate-obovate or lanceolate, entire, glabrous or hispid, obtuse, trinerved. Inflorescence a mono or dischasial cyme. Flowers bisexual, small, shortly pedicellate, 3-6 in one cluster; bracts large, membranous, enveloping the fait, hooded inside, broadly ovate. Calyx-tube oblong-obovoid, incurved, persistent, limbs usually ciliate. Corolla 4-lobed, campanulate, lobes short, ovate. Stamens 4. Ovary 2-loculed, one sterile one fertile; style 2-fid; stigma 2-lobed, lobes capitate; ovules solitary, semi-anatropous. Fruit oblong, incurved, membranous, 2-seeded, one abortive, other fertile with elongated incurved face, ventrally hispid at the top, testa membranous, embryo elongated, cotyledons elliptic.
A small genus of about 3 European and S.W. Asiatic species; represented in Pakistan by one species.
