Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems succulent, main stems hard or becoming woody, prostrate, rooting at the nodes and forming mats, flowering stems solitary, ascending to erect, 1–3 dm long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple (reduced and scale-like). Opposite. Margins entire. Sessile and connate with other leaf at the node and deccurent on the stem. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences in spikes 1–4 cm long, ca. 2.5–3 mm in diameter, sunken in groups of 3–7 on opposite sides of the joints; the central flower cuneate–obovate, apex truncate, the lateral ones scarcely smaller. Flowers bisexual (perfect), small. Calyx fleshy. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 1–2; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2–3(–5)-carpellate, 1-celled, placentation basal; ovule 1; styles 2, connate at base; stigmas dry.

Fruit: Utricles surrounded by the spongy persistent calyx. Seeds 1 per fruit; vertical; brown; ca. 1 mm long; pubescent.

Ploidy: 2n = 18

Habitat:

Elevation Range: