Annual herb, stem prostrate, unarmed, woolly. Leaves alternate, petiolate, simple, Iobed; stipules minute or absent. Flowers small, pedicellate, axillary, solitary or in pairs. Calyx 5-lobed, persistent cup-shaped, shallow, expanded, nearly flat below, contracted above, echinate, forming a conical disk with the carpels. Petals 5, small slightly exceeding the calyx, greenish-white in colour. Stamens 10, inserted in the throat of the calyx tube. Carpels 10, connate at the base and adnate to the hypantium, tapering into slightly exserted, subulate, spinescent stlyes; ovule I in each carpet Fruit dry indehiscent, discoid or pentagonal, hard, woody, densely echinate above, smooth or wooly beneath Seeds curved.

A monotypic genus extending from North Africa eastward into Western Asia, Pakistan and North-Western Indian desert.

Lower Taxon

• Neurada procumbens L.

Related Synonym(s):

• Figaraea aegyptiaca Viv. = Neurada procumbens L.