Kali monoptera (Bunge) Lomon.

Riversides, sandy slopes. Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Xizang [Mongolia, Russia (Altai)].

Herbs annual, 10–30 cm tall. Stem branched from base, densely hispid; branches alternate, horizontally spreading, lowest ones subopposite. Leaves yellow-green, filiform, semiterete, 1–1.5 cm × 0.5–1 mm, hispid, base slightly expanded, apex spinose mucronate. Inflorescence spikelike, or sometimes flowers borne throughout plant; bracts lanceolate, longer than bractlets. Perianth segments narrowly ovate, membranous, hardened and leathery in fruit, only 1 segment abaxially winged, others with a toothlike process, all glabrous; portion of segment above wing or process connivent with others and forming a plane surface, apex acute. Stamens longer than perianth; anthers ca. 0.3 mm; appendage very small. Style very short; stigmas filiform, 4–6 × as long as style. Seed horizontal, ca. 1 mm in diam. Fl. Jul–Aug, fr. Aug–Sep.

Annuals, very branched from the base. Stems prostrate or ascending, green, often with reddish stripes, papillate or almost glabrous. Leaves very densely arranged, linear, 10.0–25.0 × 0.4–1.0 mm, leaf mucro ~1.0 mm long. Flowers in axillary clusters and arranged in the main inflorescence. Flower clusters (located below the main inflorescence) consist of one flower supported by a bract and two bracteoles, sometimes additional bracts are present in the clusters; bracts and bracteoles half fused or less; perianth segments membranous, r-shaped with their tips appressed to each other, not hardened, not forming a conus, with pinkish or white, small or hardly noticeable wing-like tubercles in the flexure, one segment (closest to the bract) with small tuberculate (up to 1.0 mm) projection; styles with stigmas ca. 1.0 mm long; fruits 1.0–1.2 mm, depressed roundish to ovoid. Flowers in the main inflorescence with a free bract and two bracteoles (slightly shorter than bract), hermaphrodite; perianth segments free, membranous, r-shaped, horizontally appressed and not forming a conus above the flexure; wing-like appendages vertically located and clearly unequal (the most prominent, entire to lobate < 1.5 mm long, wing develops on the segment closest to the bract (rarely in other positions), other segments have smaller entire tubercles up to 1 mm or no projections at all); the whole diaspore with the perianth wings 1.5–2.3 mm across; anthers 0.3–0.4 mm long; styles with stigmas ~1.0 mm; fruit 1.1–1.4 mm, lenticular. Seeds with horizontally or obliquely orientated embryo.

See Fig. 48.