Annual or perennial herb with creeping or ascending stems, often rooting at the nodes. Leaves digitately 3-foliolate; leaflets sessile, obcordate with a narrow sinus, pilose particularly beneath and at margins. Flowers in 1–6-flowered pseudo-umbels; peduncles about as long as petioles; pedicels 7–15 mm long. Sepals 2–5 mm long, hairy. Petals yellow, 4–10 mm long. Styles hairy. Capsule linear-oblong, c. 9–17 mm long, ± densely puberulous. Seeds brown, transversely ridged.
Range
N1–3 widespread in the tropics and also in many temperate regions.
A polymorphic species, often subdivided into many varieties or even species. Several collections from Somalia have been assigned to O. radicosa A. Rich., but we agree with Roti Michelozzi Clavarino in Adumbr.: 424 (1978) that this cannot be maintained as a species.