Habit: Plant < 1 m; branches, leaves dense.
Stem: from woody rhizome, herbaceous.
Leaf: alternate, deeply, irregularly 2-ternately or ternately-pinnately lobed, fleshy; lobes 2--6 cm, linear, acute to abruptly soft pointed; stipules 1--4 mm, bristle- or leaf-like, deciduous or not.
Flower: sepals 4--5, leaf-like, entire to irregularly, deeply pinnately lobed, persistent, linear or lobes linear, acute to abruptly soft pointed; petals 4--5, white to yellow; stamens 12--15, filaments linear, bases dilated; ovary spheric, chambers (2)3(4), each many-ovuled.
Fruit: capsule +- spheric, leathery, irregularly loculicidal; chambers (2)3(4); style persisting as beak > fruit body.
Seed: many per chamber, triangular, dark, curved.
Species In Genus: 3 species: deserts, North America, northern Africa, Spain; to China; Mongolia.
Etymology: (Name used by Theophrastus for "rues")
Jepson eFlora Author: Duncan M. Porter
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
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