Erect, rather bushy, slightly to considerably branched annual herb, 0.1–1 m. tall.. The lowest 1–2 internodes subterete, otherwise the stem and branches clearly angular-striate, pale with the striae darker, moderately or rather thinly furnished with thick-based bristly hairs or finally glabrescent; nodes ± swollen, but the stem and branches not shrunken above them when dry.. Leaves oblong-ovate to broadly elliptic, 2–7 × 1.5–4 cm., acute to rather blunt at the apex, at the base cuneate into the 0.7–2 cm. petiole, moderately furnished with strigulose hairs or subglabrous with the hairs only on the lower surface of the primary venation and along the thickened, frequently reddish coloured margins.. Inflorescences terminal on the stem and branches, from bud right through to fruit of solitary or paired globose heads of agglomerate cymes (very rarely a second lower pair on the same peduncle, not seen from the Flora region), in flower 0.75–1 cm. in diameter, in fruit enlarging and forming a burr up to 2.5–3 cm. with strongly accrescent very rigid spines 5–7 mm. long; peduncle 0.5–2 cm., thinly to densely white pilose; bracts broadly deltoid-ovate, 2.5–4 mm., whitish-membranous, thinly pilose, shortly and finely aristate with the excurrent mucro; bracteoles similar, usually smaller and more pilose, often asymmetrical with the midrib not central; ultimate divisions of cymes of a central fertile flower subtended on each side by a triad of 1 fertile and 2 modified flowers.. Tepals all oblong, 3–5-nerved with the inner pair of lateral nerves occasionally branched, sometimes converging on the midrib above but not confluent with it, the outer nerves when present much shorter, the midrib excurrent in a short, obscure mucro; outer tepal longest and broadest, very concave, 3.5–4 mm., densely long-pilose dorsally except on the rather broad hyaline border; inner 4 tepals progressively shorter, glabrous or almost so, the inner 2 frequently slightly denticulate at the apex.. Modified flowers of 2 narrow bracteoliform processes and 2–4 simple yellow or brownish spines.. Filaments delicate ± 1.5 mm.; pseudostaminodes broadly cuneate-obovate, 0.5–0.75 mm., denticulate or excavate at the plane or slightly inflexed apex, frequently reddish coloured, with no dorsal scale.. Ovary small, broadly ovoid, ± 1 mm., style very short, 0.3–0.5 mm.. Capsule compressed-subrotund, broader than high, ± 3–3.5 mm. wide, firm-walled.. Seed compressed-rotund, ± 2.5–3 mm., brown, almost smooth.
Home