Japanese name: クルマバザクロソウ（車葉柘榴草） Scientific name:Mollugo verticillata
[Overview]
An annual found in fields, along roadsides and on sandy ground.
The stem has no ridges and branches freely, creeping along the ground or rising at an angle.
Leaves are simple, in pseudo-whorls of 4–7, oblanceolate, 1.2–2.5 cm long, with one distinct vein.
The flowers have slender stalks and are borne in clusters of several in the leaf axils; they have no petals, and the five sepals look like petals.
The sepals are white with three green veins.
The fruit is an ovate-oblong capsule.
The seeds are kidney-shaped and glossy brown, with raised lines in concentric patterns on the surface.
[History]
It is said to have first been discovered on the coast of Niigata in the late Edo period.
