Octoceras lehmannianum Illustration Credit: Shaukat & Azmat

Small annual herbs, spreading, branched mostly from the base, pubescent with branched and stellate, somewhat appressed hairs. Leaves oblong-elliptic or narrowly spathulate, sinuate-pinnatifid, lower stalked, upper sessile or subsessile. Racemes ebracteate, lax and elongating in fruit. Flowers minute, yellowish, subsessile; pedicel very short, becoming thickened and somewhat appressed in fruit. Sepals oblong, not saccate, pubescent, spreading. Petals narrowly spathu¬late, about as long as the sepals. Stamens 6; filaments linear with broad bases. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, minute, dot-like; middle absent. Ovary short, suborbicular, ± with 8 short appendages (4 on each valve), 2-ovuled; style short with a sub-bilobed, capitate stigma. Siliculae short, cubical or quadrate, coriaceous, bilocular, indehiscent, (rarely sub-dehiscent) ; valves with a prominent mid-rib, each with 3-4 spine-like short projections; septum rigid; seed one in each locule, oblong, brown; radicle incumbent.

A monotypic genus of W. Asia.

Lower Taxon

• Octoceras lehmannianum Bunge