Field parsley piert

Aphanes arvensis (field parsley piert, common parsley piert) is a small, low, sprawling, softly downy annual herb of the rose family (Rosaceae), growing only 2–20 cm tall and easily overlooked among other low vegetation. The slender, much-branched, prostrate to weakly ascending stems are clothed in fine spreading hairs and bear alternate, very short-stalked, fan-shaped to obovate light green leaves 2–10 mm long that are divided into three deeply lobed and toothed main segments, each lobe bearing 2–3 sharp teeth at the tip, and subtended by a conspicuous leafy stipule. From April to September the leaf axils carry tight, almost sessile, dense clusters of tiny inconspicuous greenish flowers less than 2 mm wide; each flower has four sepals and a four-lobed epicalyx but no petals, and typically only one stamen, with the cluster partly hidden by the surrounding stipules. The fruit is a tiny dry achene enclosed within the persistent calyx-tube. Native across most of Europe (including Britain) and extending east to Iran, it grows on arable land, bare disturbed ground, sandy or stony paths, and dry chalky or gravelly open soils.