Anagallis arvensis

Habit

Annual herb

Family Description

Herbs, usually rhizomatous, perennial or annual. Leaves simple, sometimes all radical or sometimes cauline, alternate or opposite, exstipulate. Flowers bisexual, regular, mostly 5-merous, sometimes 4-7-merous, small or medium-sized, sometimes axillary, solitary or in heads, umbels or in whorls sometimes aggregated into racemes or spikes, inflorescences often on peduncles (scapes); flowers monomorphic or dimorphic (pin- and thrum-flowers) with styles and stamens set at different levels. Calyx teeth connate or at least coherent at base. Corolla rotate with cylindrical basal tube and 5-7 patently spreading lobes or funnel-shaped with corolla tube and lobes more or less in line. Stamens as many as corolla lobes, adnate and opposite to them. Ovary superior, ovoid, globose or narrowly cylindric, unilocular, style short or elongate, stigma often capitate. Capsule 5-7-valved or upper part dehiscing as a cap or bursting irregularly. Seeds few to numerous, borne on a free central placenta, compressed and winged or peltate and convex beneath.

Genus Description

Erect or decumbent annual herbs. Leaves opposite or alternate, entire, sessile. Flowers 5-merous, solitary, axillary, without bracts. Calyx deeply toothed. Corolla red or blue, shallowly campanualate. Filaments villous. Ovary globose; style filiform. Capsule globose, upper half dehiscing as a cap.

Species description

Stems square in section, 6-20(-45)cm, glabrus. Leaves opposite, occasionally in whorls of 3, ovate, 0.7-2(-3.5) x 0.3-1(-1.5)cm, acute rounded or slightly cordate, glabrous, gland-dotted beneath. Peduncles 1-2(-3)cm, erect at first, later decurved. Calyx 4-5mm, teeth lanceolate. Corolla blue (in Bhutan specimens), lobes obovate, 4-5 x 3-4mm, margins erose, minutely glandular-ciliate. Filaments 2-2.5mm. Capsule 4-5mm diameter; seeds suborbicular, c 1mm, ± compressed.