Trachyspermum Link, Enum. Hort. Berol. Alt. 1:267. 1821; Fl. China @ eFloras.org 14:77; Fl. Pak.@ eFloras.org

Annual or perennial. Leaves much divided; segments filiform to oval or ovate. Umbels terminal and lateral. Bracts and bractlets present. Calyx teeth obsolete. Petals white. Fruit pubescent, hispid or muricate; ridges distinct or not; furrows 1-vittate; commissure 2-vittate. Inner seed face plane.

15 species

Trachyspermum ammi (L.) Sprague, Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1929: 228. 1929 Fl. China @ eFloras. org 14: 78; Fl. Pak.@ eFloras.org

Annual, 15-50 cm tall, glabrous, much branched from near base upwards with more divergent branches. Stem and branches terete, striate, glabrous. Leaves basal and cauline, basal leaves withered at time of flowering, petiolate, petioles 2–5 (-8) mm long; leaf blade triangular-ovate in outline, 2–8 cm x 2–6 cm, bi to -subtripinnate with 3–5 pairs of pinnae, basal pair sessile or with petiolules up to ± 5 mm.; pinnae rather irregularly divided into narrowly linear, glabrous, rather bluntly mucronate segments up to ± 1.4 cm. long and ± 0.5 mm. wide, with ± revolute margins and not dentate. Inflorescence a compound umbel, 2.5–5 cm across; with 6–20 unequal rays, 0.5–2.5 mm long, glabrous to minutely scabrid; involucre conspicuous, of 3-8, linear or linear-subulate, often unequal, 3-7 mm long bracts. Umbellules ca. 1 cm across, 8–24-flowered; peripheral flowers female and inner ones bisexual; involucel of 5–8 linear subulate bracteoles 1-3 mm long, with scabrid margins; peduncles 2–8 cm long, glabrous; pedicels 0.5–4 mm long, unequal, minutely scabrid to subglabrous. Flowers small, bisexual, actinomorphic, epigynous, white. Calyx tube (Hypanthium) +/- ovoid, minutely scabrid; lobes / teeth very short but distinct, ovate or broadly triangular or sometimes obsolete. Petals white or tinged with pink, obcordate with 3 broad lobes, ca. 1.3 mm x 1.3 mm, shortly white-hairy. Stamens 5; anthers dark purplish black. Ovary adnate with hypanthium, inferior, 2-locular, each loculus with one ovule; styles 2, slender, deflexed, subequalling stylopodia, stylopodium bluntly conical; stigmas 2, capitate. Fruit ovate, 2-3 mm × 1-1.8 mm, covered with white papillae or at the extreme apex frequently glabrous or almost so and deeply grooved, ribs prominent.

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