Commicarpus boissieri - Desert Hogweed

Desert Hogweed is a prostrate to straggling perennial herb, with stem and branches hairless. It is named for Pierre Edmond Boissier, 19th century Swiss botanist. Leaves are ovate, nearly heart-shaped to circular, 2-6 x 1-6 cm, blunt, flat or cuspidate, often wavy or sinuate, fleshy; leaf-stalk 0.7-2 cm long. Flowers are 3-5 per node, about 6.5 mm long, in superposed umbels, bell-shaped. Flowers are pink, violet or white, 2.5-4 mm long, lower part 1.5 mm long, raphides present. Stamens are 2-3, somewhat protruding; filament 5-5.5 mm long, slender, style as long as or longer than the filaments; stigma capitate. Involucral bracts are 2-3 mm long, linear-lanceshaped, finely velvet-hairy, deciduous. Flower-stalks are 0.5-1.2 cm long, slender. Fruit is 5-7 mm long, top-shaped, nodding, with a ring of large wart-like glands around the tip. Desert Hogweed is native to the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan to NW India.