Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Decumbent herbs.

Stems: Stems rooting at the nodes, up to 20 cm or more long, moderately hirtellous to pilose.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Blades ovate to ovate–lanceolate or suborbicular, 1.5–7 cm long, 0.8–4 cm wide. Apex acute. Base truncate to short-attenuate. Surfaces sparsely to densely pilose. Margins ciliate and somewhat crenulate. 3-veined. Petioles 0.5–2.5 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in mostly solitary or 2, terminal, pedicels ca. 2 mm long in fruit. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Hypanthium terete (cylindrical), 5–7 mm long in flower, densely covered with green, spreading, hair-like, linear–oblong appendages 2–4 mm long, apex stellate and sparsely to moderately bristly along their length; fruiting hypanthium cylindrical-campanulate, ca. 1 cm long, ca. 0.9 cm wide. Calyx lobes lanceolate in fruit, persistent, 5–6.5 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide at base, bristly at apex and externally. Corolla of 5 petals, obovate, ca. 20 mm long, ca. 15 mm wide. Stamens 10, markedly dimorphic; anthers linear, with ventrally inclined pores, connective of larger anthers prolonged ventrally at base of anther and modified into a 2-lobed appendage at junction with filament, connective of smaller anthers barely developed ventrally; anthers of larger Stamens pink or lavender, 7–8 mm long, connective prolonged 3–4 mm and modified basally into a deeply 2-lobed spur 1.5–2 mm long; anthers of smaller Stamens yellow, 5.5–7 mm long, connective prolonged 0.5 mm or less with a 2-lobed spur usually 0.5 mm long. Ovary inferior, distinct along the distal ½ but adnate at base to inner hypanthial wall by 8–10 septa, 5-celled, apex bristly, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style simple and terminated by a punctiform to capitate stigma.

Fruit: Capsules coriaceous; enclosed by the hypanthium at maturity. Seeds numerous; cochleate; ca. 1 mm long; prominently ribbed dorsally with a deep pit on each side; endosperm absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 30

Habitat:

Elevation Range: