Distribution: Belgium; France; Spain; Portugal; Italy; Switzerland; Austria; Germany; Czechoslovakia; Poland; Hungary; Yugoslavia; Greece; Turkey; Cyperus; Lebanon; Palestine; Iran; Afghanistan; India; Kashmir; Morocco; Algeria; Ethiopia.

United States

Origin: Exotic

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Unknown/Undetermined

Confidence: Confident

Global Range: Native to south Europe, north Africa, southwest Asia.

We are following J. R. Akeroyd (1993) rather than M. N. Chaudhri (1968) in treating Herniaria cinerea as an infraspecific taxon of H. hirsuta. We believe it more appropriate to recognize the differences at varietal level; intermediate conditions found in both European and North American populations weaken the distinctions.

Annual, prostrate, branched, hirsute, herb. Stem and branches with 2-4 mm long internodes, with short hairs. Leaves opposite, sessile, covered with stiff short hairs or older ones occasionally marginally ciliate, alternate on flowering shoots, narrowly elliptic-oblong to elliptic, 2-4 mm long and 1-1.25 mm wide, obtuse, margin entire, hirsute. Inflorescence dense leaf opposed, stellate cymose clusters of 6-9 flowers. Flowers green, pentamerous, 1-1.5 mm long, sessile, perigyn¬ous, densey covered with short, stiff, spreading hairs, perigynous zone subglabrous to almost glabrous. Sepals 5, equal or somewhat unequal in older flowers, c. 1 mm long, oblong, obtuse, covered with stiff, whitish spreading hairs, margins membranous. Petals 5, free, filiform, alternate with and shorter than sepals, c. 0.4 mm long. Stamens 3-5, antisepalous, filaments minute; anthers ovoid. Ovary ovoid-subglobose, papillose near the apex; style minute, bilobed with 2 minute stigmas divergent in fruit. Fruit papillose near the apex, scarcely equalling the persistent sepals. Seed minute, ovoid, brown.

Plant parts contain saponin glycoside herniarin and an alkaloid paronychin. It is used as fodder for cattle and camels.

Plants annual, gray-green, densely pubescent. Stems prostrate to ascending, 4-20 cm. Leaves opposite proximally, often alternate distally; stipules 0.5-1.3 mm; blade elliptic to oblanceolate, 3-12 mm, hirsute or ciliate, ad-axial surface sometimes glabres-cent. Inflorescences axillary, leaf-opposed or on short branches, mostly 3-8-flowered. Flowers 0.9-1.8 mm, densely pubescent; calyx burlike; sepals equal or somewhat unequal, 0.8-1.5 mm, hirsute, hairs of perigynous zone hooked or tightly coiled, each sepal with 1-2 spinelike hairs at apex; stamens 2-3 or 5; staminodes petaloid, 0.4-0.6 mm; styles distinct or connate in proximal 1/3. Utricles 0.7-0.9 mm, ca. equaling sepals. 2n = 18, 36 (Europe).

Comments: Disturbed, sandy or clay soils; <1750 m.

Fl. Per.: September.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: NNA - Not Applicable

Rounded Global Status Rank: GNR - Not Yet Ranked

Reasons: Native to south Europe, north Africa, southwest Asia.