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Erect or occasionally ascending, glabrous perennial herb (15-)25-100 cm tall with a thick, oblique, ± scaly rootstock with fibrous rootlets. Stem green to purplish, sulcate-striate, sparingly branched or simple below the inflorescence. Basal leaves long-petiolate (petioles ±5-20 cm); lamina 2.5-10 cm wide, 1.5-6 cm deep from apex to petiole, deltoid or pentagonal in outline, usually ternate with the terminal leaflet trifid and the two laterals deeply bifid so that the lamina appears palmately almost 5-partite; margins with a narrow thickened edge, sharply or more bluntly dentate, the teeth with forwardly-directed subaristate mucros up to ±1 mm long; lower stem leaves similar, becoming more shortly petiolate, upper leaves mostly trisect or tripartite, becoming sessile or almost so, the uppermost small and bractlike, trifid or simple; all leaves glabrous. Umbels small, ±5-10 mm in diameter, on mostly 4-14 mm peduncles (more in the terminal umbels of each cymose division). Flowers ±4-10 in each umbel, of which 1-6 are female and 3-4 female and fertile; female flowers sessile or very shortly pedicellate, fruiting pedicels of male flowers 1-2 mm; involucre of ±6-12 linear bracts 1-6 mm long, with pale margins and midrib. Calyx-lobes acute, linear-subulate with a firm excurrent midrib, ±0.75-1 mm Petals obovate, emarginate above, ±0.75-1 mm, white to pinkish, glabrous. Anthers bluish in colour. Fruit subglobose to shortly ovoid, 3-4 mm, covered with uncinate, commonly purplish prickles, calyx persistent; stylopodia flattened or concave; styles slender, ±1.5-2.5 mm; vittae around the dorsal surface of the mericarp several, small and obscure, commissure with 2 large and obvious vittae or rarely small and numerous here also.
Plants 20–80 cm high. Stem erect, branched above, upper parts purplish brown-tinged. Basal leaves several; petioles 5–25 cm; blade broadly ovate-cordate or subpentagonal, 3–7 × 4–10 cm, palmately 3(–5)-parted, irregularly serrate, teeth mucronate; central segment obovate or rhombic, shallowly 2–3-parted, base cuneate, apex acuminate; lateral segments oblique-ovate, often 2-parted. Cauline leaves short-petiolate; blade 3(–5)-parted, upper leaves greatly reduced. Inflorescence cymose branched, terminal branch often very short, lateral branches elongate; bracts 2, lanceolate; rays ca. 5 mm, unequal; bracteoles 7–10, linear; umbellules 4–8-flowered. Staminate flowers 1–4 per umbellule, pedicels 1–1.5 mm; petals white, pale yellow or pale blue. Fertile flowers 3(or 4) per umbellule; calyx teeth shorter than bristles, persistent; styles 2-times longer than calyx teeth, recurved. Fruit ovoid-globose, 2.5–3 × 2–2.5 mm, densely covered with uncinate bristles; vittae 5, small, commissural vittae 2, larger. Fl. and fr. May–Oct.
Perennial herb, up to 0.8 m high. Leaves ± pentagonal, 3-5(-7)-digitate, leaflets lobed and toothed, teeth aristate. Flowers few, sessile in simple umbels, pinkish. Calyx with lanceolate lobes. Flowering time Oct.-Jan. Fruit burr-like with hooked bristles; carpophore absent; mericarps broad or narrow on inner face, smooth or sometimes setose or granulate, oil ducts 5, below veins or with 2 oil ducts on inner face. Seeds flat or swollen and half-moon-shaped, often deeply concave or grooved on face.
Median segment broadly lanceolate to ovate or obovate, acuminate at the apex, 3-lobed, entire or tending towards a pinnatifid state; margins serrate with mucronate tips to the teeth; lateral lobes obliquely and irregularly lanceolate to ovate, with cuneate bases.
Perennial herb. Flowering stems up to 0.8 m high. Leaves mainly basal, simple; blade palmately to pinnately divided, margins serrate with teeth mucronate. Flowers: white to yellowish green; Nov.-Aug. Fruit densely covered with strongly hooked spines.
Tufted perennial to 80 cm. Leaves 3-5-digitate, leaflets lobed and toothed. Flowers few, sessile in simple umbels, pinkish. Fruit burr-like with hooked bristles, mericarps isodiametric, homomorphic, vittae absent, rib oil ducts present.
Basal leaves on long petioles up to 30 cm.; lamina up to 14 cm. wide, very broadly ovate or pentagonal in outline, varying from ternate to palmate with up to 5 divisions, these sessile or distinctly petiolulate.
Herb, up to 0.8 m high. Leaves palmately to pinnately divided; margins serrate with mucronate tips to the teeth. Fruit densely covered with strongly hooked spines. Flowers white to yellowish green.
Fruit 2 or 3 in each partial umbel, 2× 3 mm., shortly ovoid, densely covered with strongly-hooked spines, these yellowish-brown at maturity.
Umbels with 2–3 rays c. 5 mm. long, sometimes with subsessile lateral umbels. Partial umbels 4–7-flowered, with 1–4 flowers male.
Commissural face of seed slightly concave. Commissural vittae 2, with a number of small ones scattered around the fruit wall.
Calyx lobes acute, linear-lanceolate; petals white to yellowish-green; styles c. twice as long as the calyx, spreading.
Stem dichotomously branched above, with numerous striations.
Cauline leaves similar, becoming gradually reduced above.
Bracts 2–3, 3–4 mm. long, narrowly lanceolate.
Rootstock with numerous fine wiry roots.
Erect glabrous herb up to 80 cm.
Spine-covered fruit
A glabrous herb
