Erect, glabrous shrublets up to 60 cm high, woody at the base from which arise annual flowering shoots with the leaves mostly crowded near the base, or tussock-forming plants with the leaves in a dense rosette; lower part of the annual stems often reddish or purplish. Leaves 3-20 cm long, 0-5-4 mm broad, entire, filiform to strap-shaped or lobed in the upper half with the lobes short (3-5 mm), or long (up to 3 cm), or finely to coarsely pinnately lobed, often somewhat fleshy, acute or acuminate, the midribs of the basal leaves peristent. Stipules subulate-filiform, caducous except on the lower leaves where they are united with the expanded, sheath-like base. Peduncles 8-35 cm long, nearly naked or sparsely and reÂmotely leafy, simple or laxly branched; racemes contracted in the early stages, lengthening to up to 20 cm in fruit. Pedicels 0-7-2-5 cm long in flower, erect, thickened at the apex, subtended by 2 caducous subÂulate bracts; 1-2-8 cm long in fruit, recurved. Sepals 4-8-5 mm long, 1-3-3-5 mm broad, oblong; outer 2 cucullate and shortly horn-tipped; inner 2 saccate, with broad memÂbranous margins. Petals 6-5-13-5 mm long, 4-9-5 mm broad, narrowly obovate to obo-vate-circular, rounded, the claw thick, often minutely papillate. Filaments 3-5-5-3 mm and 3 • 8-5 • 8 mm long, the 2 short ones someÂtimes minutely papillate at the base. Anthers 2-4 mm long. Ovary linear-oblong; stigma small, capitate; ovules 14-30. Fruits 2-5-8 cm long, 2-5-5 (-6) mm broad, broadly linear with straight margins; valves 1-nerved, faintly reticulate, flat; style 3-10 mm long, straight. Seeds 2-5-4 x 2-8-5-5 mm, sub-circular or broadly oblong, narrowly winged. Fig. 9:2.
