Annual (or biennial?), stout, erect, ± glabrous. Stem sulcate, hollow, often much branched. Leaves petiolate, basal leaves 3-lobed or 3-partite, lateral lobes sometimes deeply bilobed again, lobes irregularly shallowly crenate. Upper stem leaves sessile, 3-lobed, lobes linear-oblong, entire or ± deeply crenate to lobulate. Flowers numerous, 5-10 mm in diameter, yellow. Sepals pubescent outside, ovate, obtuse, deflexed, petals shorter than sepals, obovate. Achenes up to 1.3 mm, glabrous, smooth to rugose, dorsally keeled, arranged in an oblong to shortly cylindrical spike, attached to a sparsely ciliate elongated, spindle-shaped receptacle. Style very short, asymmetrically inserted, with an obtuse tip.
Fl. Per.: March-April.
Type: Described from Europe.
B,C-6 Peshawar: Peshawar, S.A. Lodhi 15 (RAW), Baltistan: Nagar, F.Schmid 1934 (RAW), B-7 Hazara: Abbottabad, M. Nath 74 (RAW), C,D-6 D.I. Khan: In cult. fields, Y. Nasir 7017 (RAW), C-7 Islamabad & Rawalpindi: Karot, E. & Y. Nasir 8316 (RAW), Sohawa, Y. Nasir & R. Akhter 10670 (RAW), Attock: Wah, Sultanul Abedin 2724 (KUH), Sind: F-5 Shikarpur, 19.4.1957, S.I. Ali s.n. (KUH).
Distribution: Found nearly in all parts of Europe, Asia and N. Africa.
In the specimens from Pakistan, the receptacle is almost completely glabrous. Apart from this character no other morphological differences are present between the European and Pakistani populations.
Common throughout Pakistan in marshes and wet places from plains to 3000 m.
