Erect, perennial herb, up to 90 cm tall, all parts stellate pubescent. Leaves with 3-7 mm long, filiform or linear stipule, and 0.5-1.5 cm long petiole; blade 2-5 cm long, 1-4 cm broad, ovate-oblong, coarsely serrate-crenate, entire towards the base, obtuse or somewhat truncate, stellate pubescent on both sides, darker above, cinereous below, penninerved, at base mostly 5 nerved. Flowers white, axillary, solitary or paired; pedicel 5-8 mm, in fruit up to 10 mm, rarely up to 15 mm long, with or without articulation at the top. Calyx 5 lobed, c.4 mm across, 4.6 mm long, slightly angular; lobes triangular-deltoid, acuminate, 2.3 mm long, 3-4 mm broad. Corolla 1-1.5 cm across; petals 7-8 mm long, 4-5 mm broad, oblique, unguiculate, claw hairy. Staminal tube up to 3 mm long, hairy. Carpels 7-8; locule, style branches and stigmas as many as carpels. Fruit depressed globose, 3-5 mm in diameter, incompletely enclosed by calyx; mericarps 2-3 mm long, radially 2-2.5 mm broad, dorsally 1-1.5 mm broad, reticulate towards the margin, not so towards the centre, glabrous except awns, indehiscent; awns 2,0.5 mm long, connivent, inflexed, Seeds 1.5-2 mm long, somewhat reniform, slightly longitudinally grooved on the dorsal surface, brown to dark brown.

Holotype: Arabia, Surdwd (Cl).

Distribution: In drier parts of Africa, Arabia, India, Pakistan and Persia.

In Pakistan it is common in Sindh and Punjab.