Frommia ceratophylloides H.Wolff

Perennial herb, glabrous throughout or a few hairs on the stem and branches, 0.6–1.5 m. tall with a single stout stem, much-branched from a little above the base with alternate, opposite or verticillate branches diverging at ± 30°–90° to form a broad compound inflorescence; branches wiry, green to purplish, terete, striate.. Basal leaves forming a rosette above a scaly or fibrous collar formed by the decaying sheaths of previous years’ leaves, linear in outline, the lamina 7–20 × 1.5–3.5 cm.; sheath 2–4.5 cm., striate, attenuate into a 1.5–7 cm. petiole; pinnae opposite or subopposite, sessile, densely set, repeatedly 2–3-forked into 2–6(–8) × 0.25 mm., straight or ± curved, linear-canaliculate, sharply mucronate segments; lower stem leaves similar but smaller, rapidly becoming very short with few segments, those in the upper part of the inflorescence reduced to the firm, frequently ciliate-margined sheaths.. Umbels in ultimate groups of a large and 2 opposite lateral smaller umbels, at least some flowers of the lateral umbels ♂; peduncles 2–8 cm. in fruit; umbel-rays 3–12, 1.5–3.5 cm. long at maturity; partial umbels 5–14-flowered; pedicels 2–4 mm.. Petals yellow, ± 0.75 mm.. Fruit ovoid, glabrous, ± 3 × 2 mm., blackish brown at maturity; stylopodia shortly conical, subequalled by the short divergent styles.. Fig. 17.