Plants suffructicose, 15-35 (-60) cm tall, branched. Branches terete, rigid, spreading, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Leaves few, sub-petiolate, glabrous or almost so, 5-18 (-28) x 0.5-2.5 mm, linear to linear-lanceolate, cuneate or shortly auriculate, acute to mucronate. Flowers white-pink, solitary or up to 6 in axillary heads. Peduncle 13-24 mm long, glabrous. Bracts 5-11 mm long. Bracteoles c. 6 mm long, lanceolate, acute, tan-tomentose. Flowers sub-pedicellate. Sepals 8-11 mm long, linear to linear-oblanceolate, acuminate, sericeous-tomentose, the outer sepals longer than the inner. Corolla 15-17 mm long, hairy bands outside, the tube glabrous. Ovary glabrous, on a cupshaped disc, style slender, stigma short and cylindrical. Capsule subglobose, c. 4 mm long, glabrous. Seeds probably 2, glabrous, dark brown, 3 mm long, tuberculate.

Fl. Per.: Jan-May, Fr. Per.: May-June.

Type: S. Iran, Aucher-Eloy 4955 (holo.: G-Boiss., iso. :W).

Baluchistan: G-2, 5 miles from Mund Turbat rd., Ali, Farooqi & Abedin 928 (KUH), id., Sultanul Abedin & Ibrar Hussain 6243 (KUH), nr. rest house Turbat, Ali, Farooqi & Sultanul Abedin 803 (RAW), 11 miles from Turbat in dry river bed, Ali, Farooqi & Sultanul Abedin 1529 (KUH), Turbat to Gwadar, Lamond 416 (E), c. 20 miles from Mund on way to Sunstar, Ali & Farooqi 1887 (KUH), on way to Sunstar, in gravel sandy clay, Sultanul Abedin & Ibrar Hussain 6293 (KUH), F-2 Makran Dist.: 20 miles from Goish Kaur, on way to Hoshab, Sultanul Abedin & Ibrar Hussain 5998 (KUH), Jhallo (Jhal Jhao) Rechinger 27658 (K), G-3 c. 16 miles from Bela, in sandy soil, M. Qaiser & A. Ghafoor 1154 (KUH), Bela, Rechinger 27456 (K) , Wad to Bela, Lamond 219 (E), Mandra, in dry stream bed, Ali, Farooqi & Sultanul Abedin 1447 (KUH).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan), S. Iran, Muscat, Oman.

A Persian-Baluchistan species, not recorded previously from Pakistan. It grows on dry sandy and gravelly soils on the Iran-Baluchistan border areas, and has been collected mainly from the Makran district in SW. Baluchistan. The plant is quite tall, ranging from 25-40 cm in height. The leaf shape and size varies but it seems from the specimens examined, that the radical leaves are longer and the cauline leaves linear and smaller. The plant is not spiny but the older branches are terminally rigid and somewhat pointed.