Lepidium apetalum Willd., Sp. Pl. 3. 439. 1800. L. ruderale auct. non L.; Hook. f. & Thomson in J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 5: 175. 1861; Hook. f. & T. Anderson in Fl. Brit. India 1: 160. 1872, p.p.

Herbs, annual or biennial, up to 30 cm high; stems branched, sparsely to densely hairy with thick capitate hairs; branches and branehlets in raceme-like patterns, always terminating in a short raceme. Radical leaves long-petioled, oblong, subpinnate or pinnatifid, ca 3.5 x 1 cm, lobes very frequently narrow and entire; cauline leaves sessile, broad, semiauricled and semiamplexicaul at base; lower lanceolate or oblong, deeply or coarsely dentate or lobed, lobes entire and acute; upper linear, nearly obtuse at apex, entire or remotely serrate. Flowers in both axillary and terminal racemes; terminal racemes elongating up to 5 mm long in fruit, minutely capitate-hairy. Sepals ovate, 0.75 - 1 mm long, white-margined. Petals oblong or triangular to triangular-obovate, narrowed to base, retuse or subemarginate at apex, ca 0.5 mm long, membranous. Stamens 2 or 4, 0.75 mm long. Fruits elliptic or ovate, distinctly notched and very narrowly winged in upper part, 2.5 - 3 x 2 - 2.5 mm; stigma sessile. Seeds elliptic, ca 1 mm long, reddish brown; cotyledons incumbent.

Fl. & Fr. June - Aug.

Distrib. India: Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

Nepal and C. & S.W. Asia.