Reseda pruinosa Del.

Nile region, Oases, Mediterranean region, Egyptian desert, Res Sea coastal strip, Gebel Elba and Sinai.

Sahara, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia.

The species can be distinguished from Reseda aucheri Boiss. in having pruinose parts, the narrowly cut upper leaves and the filaments which are deciduous.

Specimens from Darazinda (D-6) differ in having seeds that are usually granulate and not rugose.

Perennial 45-70 cm tall. Stem and branches pruinose to papillose, rarely glabrous. Leaves 2-8 cm long, 8-15 mm broad, lower linear to lanceolate, upper ternate. Flowers small, in dense racemes up to 30 cm long; bracts 1.5-4 mm long, deciduous. Pedicels about 2 mm long in fruit. Sepals 5-6, elliptic, c. 1 mm long, deciduous, margin membranous. Posterior petal with 7-9(-10) linear to spathulate segments, the median slightly larger than the lateral and often 3-4-fid; appendage c. 1.5 mm long, more or less the size of the petal or shorter. Ovary contracted below stigmatic lobes. Capsule 3-4 mm broad, subglobose to obovoid, erect, with 3 blunt stigmatic lobes. Seeds less than 1 mm long, rugose, shiny black when mature.

Distribution: Egypt, Arabia to Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Fl.Per.: Oct.-June.