A. RADCLIFFE-SMITH

A decumbent, glabrous, glaucous, fleshy annual herb up to 15 cm, more usually c. 5-10 cm tall. Stem-leaves few, opposite or alternate, petiolate, obovate-spathulate to oblanceolate, 1-2 cm x 3-5 mm, obtuse or rounded, ± entire. Upper leaves all opposite, sessile, obliquely ovate-rhombic to sub-orbicular, 0.5-1.7 x 0.4-1.5 cm, obtuse and mucronulate at the apex, cuneate, rounded or truncate at the base, subentire or obscurely denticulate, palminerved. Pseudumbel 3-rayed, or branching dichotomous throughout. Cyathia solitary in the forks of the dichotomies. Axillary shoots sometimes also present. Glands transversely oblong to crescentic, 2-homed, reddish, pink or yellowish, the horns subulate, whitish. Fruits ovoid-trilobate, 2.5-3 x 2-2.5 mm, smooth. Styles free, 0.5 mm long, bifid. Seeds ovoid-cylindric, quadrangular, 2 x 1 mm, irregularly and shallowly tuberculate-rugulose, pale grey but darker in the depressions, with a subsessile transversely ovoid caruncle.

Fl. Per.: April - May; Fr. Per.: May - June.

Holotype: USSR, Kazakhstan, Semirech’ya nr. Dzhambul, in saltmarshes, 1844, Al. Schrenk s.n. (LE.).

Distribution: Soviet Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrein. On sandy loam and sandy clay, on stony ground and in forests; 5000'/1525 in. - 5500'/1675 m.

Botschantzev has described a sap. badghyzi from Turkmenia, but all our material is referable to the typical subspecies.