Lappula spinocarpos (Forsk.) Ascherson

A canescent, annual plant with branched and erect or procumbent stems. Leaves are narrowly spathulate to linear, and the inflorescence is a terminal, lax, forked cyme. Flowers are bracteate with sky-blue petals. Fruit consists of four triquetrous-pyramidal nutlets, emarginate, rugose or smooth, whitish-grey and glossy.

Sinai (St.Katherine).

Annual.

A ± erect to decumbent annual up to 25 cm. Stem and branches hairy with appressed to subappressed hairs. Basal leaves 12-30 x 2-3 mm, oblanceolate to linear lanceolate, obtuse, covered on both surfaces with subappressed hairs. Cauline leaves similar but smaller. Pedicel short, up to 5 mm in fruit. Calyx lobes c. 1.5 mm long, erect, 6-7 mm in fruit, some hairs suberect and arising from a tuberculate base. Corolla c. 3.5 mm long, blue, infundibuliform with a broad limb. Nutlets broader than long or not, pyramidal or broadly so, tuberculate; tubercles at the base enlarged or not.

Herbs annual. Stems erect, frequently branched from base or above middle, 3-12 cm tall, densely short appressed white pubescent; branches ascending. Basal leaves grayish green, spatulate-linear, to 3 cm × 4 mm, strigose, hairs discoid at base, base attenuate, apex obtuse; stem leaves smaller. Pedicel short, stout. Calyx lobes 3-4 mm, to 5-6 mm in fruit, minutely hispid. Corolla blue-purple, 3-4 mm; limb appendaged below throat. Gynobase subulate, surpassing nutlets by ca. 1.5 mm. Style short, exceeding gynobase. Nutlets gray-white, ovoid, 3.5-4 mm, pericarp firm, shiny; adaxially coherent to gynobase by entire rib, not easily separated; disc expanded at base, lower part with a few rudimentary glochids. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Jul.

Marshes, Anabasis and Nanophyton thickets, occasionally mountain terraces. Xinjiang (Zhungeer Basin) [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uz-bekistan; N Africa, SW and W Asia, E Europe].

Anchusa spinocarpos Forsskål, Fl. Aegypt.-Arab. 41. 1775; Echinospermum spinocarpos (Forsskål) Boissier; E. vahlianum Lehmann; Sclerocaryopsis spinocarpos (Fors-skål) Brand.