Adenogramma mollugo Rchb.

A slender annual. Stems more or less erect, up to 30 cm high but commonly 5-15 cm, the branches usually wide-spreading and often apparently dichotomous. Leaves in whorls of 4-6, the basal more numerous, 4-8 mm long, 0.5-1.5 mm wide, linear, flat, acute but often not aristate, commonly ascending and more or less glaucous. Flowers rather crowded, on very short pedicels, the flowering whorls often close. Flowers like those of A. glomerata but the perianth segments white with a small green centre. Anthers usually red. Fruit brown or almost black, rotund at the base, abruptly or gradually narrowed to a broad flat rough-edged beak. The whole fruit punctate or rugose. Perianth in fruit elongating to twice its length, loosely surrounding the fruit and deciduous before it.