Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Decumbent shrubs 3–5(–15) dm tall.

Stems: Stems dark reddish brown, young growth red to pinkish brown, often rooting at the nodes, sparingly branched, branches covered with persistent stipules, leafy only toward apex.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades oblong–obovate to oblong–elliptic, sometimes narrowly obovate or elliptic, 1.5–5 cm long, 0.8–2(–2.5) cm wide. Apex rounded or truncate. Base cuneate. Upper surfaces densely silky strigose; lower surfaces densely silky strigose. Margins entire except apex with 3–5(–7) or rarely more shallow teeth. 5–6(–8)-veined. Petioles 0.7–1.5(–2) cm long. Stipules subulate, 5–11 mm long, strigillose.

Flowers: Flowers 3–6(–9) in compound cymes, these forming loose corymbose inflorescences that project beyond the leaves, axillary or terminal; peduncles and pedicels slender, pedicels subtended by narrow bracts. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic; pedicels 1.5–2.5 cm long. Calyx of 5 sepals, oblong–lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, 6–10 mm long, densely silky strigose, margins of inner sepals less densely so, distinct or sometimes connate at base, rarely forming a tube, apex mucronate. Corolla of 5 petals, white, streaked with purple or purplish magenta or sometimes in smaller flowers pure white, narrowly obovate, ca. 8–15 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, staminal filaments ca.6–7 mm long, glands pubescent; 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, ca. 6–8 mm long, slender and beak-like, sometimes narrowed below apex; 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; immature carpel bodies ca. 3 mm long; densely pubescent. Seeds presumably 1 per cell; smooth or reticulate; endosperm usually scanty or absent; rarely copious and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Forming large patches in bogs.

Elevation Range: 1,670–1,680 m.