Buchingera axillaris Illustration Credit: Shaukat & Azmat

Annual, 10-30 (-50) cm long, often decumbent, simple or branched from base, hairy with minute branched or substellate hairs. Leaves scattered, 1-5.5 (-7) cm long, 0.5-2(-3) cm broad, broadly elliptic, stalked or subsessile, dentate to subentire, apex acute, often slightly or very shortly apiculate; cotyledons often persistent and distinctly spathulate and different from other leaves, glabrous. Flowers axillary, c. 2.5 mm across, white; pedicel up to 6 (-9) mm long in fruit, subdeflexed or spreading. Sepals c. 2 mm long. Petals c. 2.5 mm long, 1 mm broad, narrowly spathulate, apex emarginate. Stamens c. 1.5: 2 mm long; filaments not appendaged; anthers c. 0.3 mm. Siliculae broadly elliptic or suborbicular, usually broader than long, 5-6 (-8) mm long, 6-8 (-9) mm broad (excl. 1-2 mm long conical style); valves compressed, obscurely tumid with narrow more compressed margin, strigose with ± anchor-shaped hairs; seeds 1 in each locule, large, slightly smaller than the size of the fruit, narrowly winged, brown.

Fl. Per. May July.

Type: Iran, Isphan, Bunge (G).

Distribution: C. Asia, Turcomania, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.