Nigella arvensis L.

Seedling

Cotyledons slanting, spatulate, large, 20 x 3-5 mm, firm, glabrous with base attenuated into petiole. The first two leaves are simple, sub-opposite, palmate with three segments which are divided into linear lobes. The following leaves are alternate, divided first once, later twice into linear segments pointed at the tip, narrow and lanceolate, general shape of the leaves triangular. The seedling is light green and glabrous.

Adult plant

Nigella arvensis is an annual plant, which can reach 40 cm in height. Erect stem, branched, with long branches. Leaves alternate, simple, long petiolate at the base of the plant then becoming sessile in the upper part. Petiole of basal leaves widening at the base into a sheathing gutter. Blade deeply divided to the midrib, resembling a 2-3-pennate compound leaf, with linear lobes with acute apex. Flowers solitary and terminal at the tips of stems and twigs, surrounded by bracts deeply divided into filiform, leaf-like lobes. Corolla rotate with 5 petaloid sepals fused at the base then spread out in tabular form with a narrow base and a widely spatulate top, light blue to whitish. The petals are reduced to nectaries in cupules equipped with a beak, at the base of the sepals. Numerous stamens green yellow. Fruits consist of 3-7 leaflets fused in the lower half forming oblong cylindrical capsules of 1.5 cm long, with very marked angles on the back of 3 prominent veins along their length, with 3-7 carpels separating in the upper half into long narrow more or less curved tips. Seeds covered with papillae, 2.2-2.6 x 1.3-1.6 mm, trigonal oval and blackish.

Origin

Nigella arvensis is native to the Euro-Mediterranean-Western Irano-Touranian region.


Algeria: Common species in all the country.

https://www.gbif.org/species/7278276