Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Glabrous, usually rhizomatous perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems erect or ascending from base, 0.5–2.5 dm long, usually 1–2 times branched in upper part, occasionally unbranched.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades ovate, elliptic, or oblanceolate, those of secondary branches smaller and more slender than principal ones, 7–20(–30) mm long, (2–)4–10 mm wide. Surfaces glandular punctate, the glands pale and most conspicuous on lower surface. Margins entire. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers numerous in simple or compound, terminal, paniculate cymes, the central one on a shorter pedicel, flowers and cymes subtended by pairs of bracts, the ultimate ones subulate. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx of 5 sepals; sepals slightly connate at base, oblong to elliptic–oblong, somewhat unequal in size, 3–3.5 mm long. Petals yellow, oblong, 2–3.5 mm long, quickly caducous. Stamens 8–9, distinct. Ovary superior; styles 3.

Fruit: Capsules oblong–ovoid; ca. 3 mm long; the styles persistent. Seeds pale brown; cylindrical; ca. 0.5 mm long; finely longitudinally striate.

Ploidy: 2n = 16

Habitat:

Elevation Range: