Tribulus terrestris
Click on each image to see a larger version and details of the record
Image 1
Leaves and flower
13 Dec 2008
Image 2
Flower
13 Dec 2008
Image 3
Leaves
13 Dec 2008
Image 4
Fruit
14 Dec 2008
| Family: | Zygophyllaceae |
| Full name: | Tribulus terrestris L. |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Dubbeltjie, Gewone dubbeltjie, Duifiedoring, Duwweltjie, Volstruisdubbeltjie, Driedoringdubbeltjie, Dubbeltjiedoring, Duiweltjie, Hondedoring, Plat dubbeltjie, Rank dubbeltjie, Volstruisdoring, Geeldubbeltjie |
| English common name(s): | Puncture vine, Goat's head bur, Maltese cross, Devil's thorn, Common dubbeltjie, Calthrop, Small calthrop, Devil's eyelashes, Burnut |
| Synonym(s): | Tribulus albescens Schltr. ex Dinter fide SWA Tribulus murex Schltr. ex Dinter fide SWA Tribulus saharae A.Chev. fide Fl. W. Trop. Africa, ed. 2 Tribulus terrestris L. var. brachyceras Batt. & Trab. Tribulus terrestris L. var. inermis Boiss. Tribulus terrestris L. var. tomentosa Batt. & Trab. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Each flower is about 0.5 in. (12.5 mm) across, consisting of 5 yellow petals, 5 triangular green sepals, 10 stamens with yellow anthers, and a pistil with a 5-lobed stigma. Prostrate annual herb. All parts covered in long whitish hairs. Leaves opposite paripinnate, one leaf in a pair often longer than the other. Peduncle shorter than or as long as, the subtending leaf. Flowers solitary in leaf axils. Petals 3-8(-12) mm, light yellow. Fruit a hard triangular drupe with sharp spines. (from Flora of Zimbabwe website) A spreading prostrate or decumbent annual, occasionally more or less frutescent below and persisting two or more years. Branches from a few inches to 2 or 3 ft. in length, pubescent, villous or hispid. Leaves in unequal pairs, the larger 1–2.5 in., with 5–8 pairs of oblong or linear-oblong, more or less acute, sessile or subsessile, opposite leaflets, oblique at the base, villous beneath, often glabrescent above. Peduncles 0.25–1 in., scarcely or not at all thickened in fruit. Flowers usually yellow. Stigmatic lobes longer than the diameter of the style (or shorter in ß. cistoides). Calyx deciduous. Fruit-carpels tubercled and often setose on the back and above, each carpel usually with 2 lateral divergent, straight, acute spines inserted above the middle and 2 shorter spines near the base directed downwards; the spines rarely reduced to mere tubercles. (from JSTOR website) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie |
| Content last updated: | 22 Nov 2011 |
