Habit: Annual, perennial herb, taprooted, stellate-hairy.
Stem: decumbent to erect, branched.
Leaf: opposite to alternate; stipules occasionally +- fused distal to node when leaves opposite; blade ovate to round, palmately lobed to compound (+- entire).
Inflorescence: umbels simple, few-flowered, peduncled or sessile; bracts generally present; pedicels 0 to short.
Flower: calyx lobes generally 0; petals generally wide, obtuse to +- acute, tip not narrowed, not incurved.
Fruit: ovate to ovoid-oblong, round, or spheric, cylindric to +- 4-angled or +- compressed front-to-back, stellate-hairy to prickly or +- glabrous; ribs obscure; fruit central axis not obvious.
Seed: face +- flat.
Species In Genus: 16 species: temperate South America, 1 in California.
Etymology: (Wm. Bowles, Irish writer on Spanish natural history, 1705--1780)
Jepson eFlora Author: Lincoln Constance & Margriet Wetherwax
Reference: Mathias & Constance 1965 Univ Calif Publ Bot 38:1--73
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
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