Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 102 (1753).

Derivation: After William Sherard, 1659-1728, English botanist and-antiquarian who left a bequest to found a chair of botany at Oxford.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Annual herbs with quadrangular stems; leaves and stipules of similar size and in whorls of varying numbers; inflorescence a dichasium of sessile flowers surrounded by an involucre of 'leaves' connate up to one-third of their length, terminal or rarely terminal on short axillary branches.

Flowers bisexual, usually 4-merous; calyx with 6 lobes, i.e. 3 persistent on each mericarp; corolla funnel-shaped, with a tube c. 4 mm long and longer than the lobes; stamens with filaments fused to much of the corolla tube; anthers without terminal appendages; ovary inferior, with 2 locules each with 1 ovule, with the style 2-lobed and ending in a capitate stigma.

Fruit dry, 2-lobed but usually not breaking freely into 2 mericarps.

Distribution:  1 species widely distributed in Europe and to western Asia but now naturalised in many parts of the world

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available