Tripleurospermum parviflorum (Willd.) Pobed.

Annual, glabrous to sparse hairy, up to 35 cm tall herb with ascending or suberect branches. Leaves oblong, 3 – 5 x 0.5 – 1.5 cm, lower long-petioled, upper and mid-stem leaves subsessile to almost sessile, deeply 1-2-pinnatisect into linear or lanceolate-subulate ultimate segments. Capitula solitary, radiate, 5 – 15 mm across on 3 – 10 cm long, slender, leafless, ± hairy peduncles. Involucre hemispherical, 4 – 10 mm across, phyllaries with reddish-brown or white scarious margins, glabrescent, 2 – 3 mm long, inner narrowly obovate, all obtuse. Receptacle conical to elongate-conical. Ray-florets with 3 – 5 x 2 – 3 mm, 3-toothed, white ligules. Disc-florets light orange-yellow, with 2 – 3 mm long, 4-toothed corolla tube, teeth triangular, eglandular at apices. Cypselas ± short oblong, 1 – 1.5 x 0.3 – 0.8 mm, brown, mucilaginous, abaxially 3-ribbed, adaxially 2-ribbed, smooth. Pappus ½ - ¼ of cypselas, funnel-shaped, ventral lobe long, ovate, dorsal lobe toothed.

Distribution: Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, Caucasus, Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Fl. Per.: March-May.

Grows in shallow depressions and also as a weed around gardens and cultivated lands in North West Frontier Province and Northern Punjab.

Pyrethrum parviflorum Willd., Sp. Pl.3: 2158. 1803; P. praecox M. Bieb., Fl. Taur.-Cauc. 2: 324. 1808; Matricaria parviflora (Willd.) Poir. in Lam., Encycl. Method. Bot. Suppl. 3: 608. 1814; R.R.Stewart, Ann. Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. & Kashm. 766. 1972; Kay in Tutin et al., Fl. Europ. 4: 167. 1976; Mand., Fl. East. Saudi Arab. 301. 1990; M. praecox (M. Bieb.) DC., Prodr. 6: 52. 1837; C.B.Clarke, Comp. Ind. 149. 1876; in Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 316. 1882; Tripleurospermum praecox (M. Bieb.) Bornm. in Beih. Bot. Centralbl. 60: 192. 1940; Rech. f., Fl. Lowland Iraq 628. 1964.