Annual, with prostrate to ascending or decumbent stems, 10-20 cm long. Stems leafy, hairy on one side. Leaves 7-20(-40) x 3-11(-22) mm, elliptic to ovate-elliptic, sessile or petiolate (the lower leaves usually with a short or long petiole), acute to subacute glabrous with the margin hairy or hairy on the nerves or sparsely hairy cm the surface. Flowers in lax panicles. Pedicels filiform. Sepals 3-4 mm, hairy or glabrous, lanceolate, with scarious margins. Petals white, deeply bilobed. Capsule exceeding the calyx, splitting by valves nearly to the base. Seeds 1 mm, subreniform. tuberculate.

Fl. Per.: April-August.

Lectotype: Described from Europe, Hb. Linn. 388.1 (LINN).

Distribution: Cosmopolitan.

Our plants exhibit a fair amount of variation in indumentum and leaf characters, but these variations are not constant enough to recognise infraspecific taxa. Stamen number ranges between 5 & 7.