Heliophila variabilis Burch. ex Dc.

Annual herbs, simple or branched, the branches spreading, 10-35 cm high, bright green; all vegetative parts finely papillate-puberulous or glandular-puberulous, the papillae often clavate, rarely subglabrous. Leaves up to 7 cm long, pinnatipartite with 1-3 pairs of remote, filiform or linear lobes; each leaf subtended by 2 minute subulate-filiform stipules. Racemes several-to many-flowered, lax, becoming very lax in fruit. Sepals 2.5-5.5 mm long, 0.9-1.5 mm broad, narrowly oblong to oblanceolate-oblong, glandular-puberulous when young; the outer 2 cucullate; the inner 2 saccate and with a broad membranous margin. Petals 4-11 mm long, 2-7 mm broad, obovate or oblong-obovate, rounded, clawed, usually without, but sometimes with a very small appendage or papillose ridge on one side of the claw. Filaments 2-3.5 mm and 2.4-3.8 mm long, the 2 short ones mostly with a small appendage, occasionally without. Anthers 0.8-1.8 mm long. Ovary linear; style short; stigma large, capitate; ovules 16-26. Fruits 2-4 cm long, 2-2.8 mm broad, moniliform or sub-moniliform, linear; valves flat, 1-nerved, glabrous or glandular-puberulous, especially when young; style 0.5-1.8 mm long. Seeds 1.5-2 mm in diameter, subcircular, flat, narrowly winged. An early spring-flowering species.