Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual herbs.

Stems: Stems decumbent or ascending, 2–4 dm long, pubescent with scattered, reflexed hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite and basal. Blades orbicular or reniform in outline, 1.5–4 cm long and about as wide. Surfaces pubescent with appressed to somewhat spreading hairs. Margins deeply palmately 5–7(–9)-lobed, the lobes oblong to linear, these again divided into linear lobes or long teeth. Petioles usually 4–8(–15) cm long. Stipules lanceolate to narrowly deltate, 3–4 mm long.

Flowers: Flowers in cymose, often umbellate inflorescences, axillary or terminal, flowers usually in pairs in the leaf axils; peduncles and pedicels slender, pedicels subtended by narrow bracts. peduncles 1–2 cm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic; pedicels 0.5–1.5 cm long, pubescent primarily with spreading glandular–tipped hairs, also with some simple, nonglandular hairs. Calyx of 5 sepals, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 6–8 mm long, pubescent with glandular hairs and some simple hairs, apex acuminate with an awn ca. 1.5 mm long, distinct or sometimes connate at base, rarely forming a tube. Corolla of 5 petals, dark pink, oblanceolate, usually 7–9 mm long, distinct, nectary glands alternate with the petals. Stamens (5)10; filaments ± connate at base, those alternate with the petals longer than others and with basal glands; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior or nearly so, 5-celled, carpels connate around a central column to form a compound ovary with as many cells, fertile portion a lobed ring at base of stylar column, placentation axile; ovules 2 per cell, anatropous to campylotropous, usually pendulous; styles 3–5, slender and beak-like, sometimes narrowed below apex, stylar column elongating to ca. 12–15 mm long in fruit; stigmas slender and dry, rarely capitate.

Fruit: Septicidal and elastically dehiscent capsules separating into as many segments as carpels; a portion of the style splitting off from remainder of stylar column and forming an awn that recurves upward from the persistent central column; usually remaining attached to apex; sometimes the awn also becomes spirally coiled; awn usually hygroscopic; carpel bodies 2–2.5 mm long; pubescent with stiff; spreading hairs. Seeds 1–2 per segment; smooth or reticulate; released from carpel body; brown; subglobose; the surface conspicuously reticulate; endosperm usually scanty or absent; rarely copious and oily.

Ploidy: 2n = 22

Habitat: Apparently sparingly naturalized in disturbed areas; primarily pastures.

Elevation Range: 915–2,150 m.