Flower Of An Hour

Annual, usually erect or somewhat spreading or straggling, hispid, 25-60 cm tall herb. Leaves 2-7 cm long 3-5-partite, central lobe longest, each lobe toothed to pinnately partite, lower leaves sometimes not lobed, nearly glabrous or sparsely stiff hairy, more so beneath; stipules 2-7 mm long, c. 1 mm broad, linear, stiff hairy, more so beneath; petiole 1.5-c. 4 cm long, minutely stellate pubescent and sparsely mixed with spreading stellate hairs. Flowers axillary, solitary; pedicel 2-4.5 cm long, stiff hairy, more so above, articulate near the top. Epicalyx segments 7-12, 5-15 cm long, linear, margin with long simple, spreading, very stiff hairs, tubercled at base. Calyx twice the length of epicalyx, fused above the middle, with green-purplish raised veins, stellate pubescent, spreading and stiff hairy on nerves, very much inflated and enclosing the fruit; lobes deltoid, acuminate, c. 1 cm broad, minutely stellate and long, simple appressed hairy within towards the margin. Corolla white-pale yellow with a purple mouth, 1.5-3 cm across; petals 1-2 cm long, 0.7-1.5 cm broad, glabrous. Staminal column 3-4 mm long, purplish; filaments c. 2 mm long, purplish; anthers yellow. Capsule 1-1.5 cm long, 0.6-1.2 cm broad, oblong, obtuse, black, very hispid. Seeds many, c. 2 mm long and broad, black tuberculate.

Herbs annual, erect or procumbent, 25-70 cm tall; stems slender, white stellate hirsute. Stipules filiform, ca. 7 mm, stellate coarsely hirsute; petiole 2-4 cm, stellate hirsute and stellate puberulent; leaf blade 3-6 cm in diam., dimorphic; blades on proximal part of stem orbicular, those on distal part of stem palmately 3-5-lobed, central lobe longer, lateral lobes shorter, lobes obovate to oblong, usually pinnate, sparsely stellate spiny hairy abaxially, sparsely hirsute or glabrous adaxially. Flowers solitary, axillary. Pedicel ca. 2.5 cm, elongated to 4 cm in fruiting, stellate hirsute. Epicalyx lobes 12, filiform, connate at base, ca. 8 mm, hirsute. Calyx greenish, campanulate, swollen, connate for ca. 1/2 length, 1.5-2 cm, membranous, long hirsute or stellate hirsute, lobes 5, triangular, longitudinally purple-veined. Corolla very pale yellow with purple center, 2-3 cm in diam.; petals 5, obovate, ca. 2 cm, abaxially sparsely very minutely puberulent. Staminal column ca. 5 mm; filaments slender, free for ca. 3 mm; anthers yellow. Styles 5, glabrous. Capsule oblong-globose, ca. 1 cm in diam., coarsely hirsute; mericarps 5, endocarp black, thin, exocarp papery. Seeds black, reniform, glandularly verrucose. Fl. Jul-Oct.

Distribution: Common in hotter parts of the Old World from Southern Europe to S. Africa, Madagascar, Asia and Australia, naturalized in America. It is common in Northern region of Pakistan.

Ruderal weed. Throughout China [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; pantropical].

Trionum annuum Medikus.