Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Gynodioecious shrubs.
Stems:
Stems often swollen at the nodes, terete (cylindrical), 4–angled or –ridged, 2–4 (–5) dm long, branching, the lowermost ascending or decumbent, the flowering branches strongly ascending, glabrous, intemodes 0.3–0.9 (–1.3) cm long, green or purple.
Roots:
Fibrous root system.
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Opposite.
Blades oblanceolate or elliptic–oblanceolate, (1.5–) 3–5.5 (–8.3) cm long, (0.3–) 0.6–1.4 cm wide.
Apex acute to obtuse.
Base leaf bases often connate around the stem, base attenuate.
Blades weakly succulent and at least the mature ones glaucous.
Margins entire, slightly thickened.
Only the midvein evident.
Petioles 0–0.4 cm long.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in inflorescence terminal, 0.3–6 cm long, contracted vertically and laterally, often congested and head-like or more open and only somewhat contracted; hermaphroditic inflorescences 1.5–4.8 cm long, with 26–93 flowers, less congested and broader than the pistillate inflorescences; pistillate inflorescence 0.3–6 cm long, with 39–140 flowers; bracts of central axis 2–3.5 mm long, those of branches and flowers 1–1.5 mm long, linear to subulate, green or purple–tinged.
Flowers bisexual (perfect) or pistillate.
Calyx of hermaphroditic flowers with sepals 2–2.85 mm long, broadly ovate, broadly and very shallowly navicular, oriented at ca. 110° angle to the pedicel, green or tinged purple toward the apex, opaque, reflexed and convex at the base, producing a small transverse bulge, glabrous, margins scarious, glabrous, apex obtuse. Pistillate flowers: sepals 2.05–3.1 mm long, broadly ovate, green or tinged purple, opaque, reflexed and convex at the base, producing a small transverse bulge, broadly and very shallowly navicular, oriented at ca. 140° angle to the pedicel, margins scarious, entire, glabrous, apex obtuse.
Corolla (petals) absent.
Stamens (9–) 10 in hermaphroditic flowers, the filaments very slightly dimorphic to subequal, white, the antisepalous whorl 3.6–4.8 mm long, the alternate whorl 3.4–5.75 mm long; anthers 0.75–0.9 mm long, yellow or pale reddish purple. Pistillate flowers: Stamens 10, vestigial; filaments unequal, the antisepalous whorl 0.5–0.85 mm long, the alternate whorl 0.2–0.6 mm long, white; anthers 0.35–0.45 mm long, white to pale yellow, not producing pollen.
Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation free-central; styles 3 (–4), green (hermaphroditic flowers) or pale greenish white (pistillate flowers).
Fruit:
Capsules 1.5–2.5 mm long; broadly ovoid.
Seeds 0.6–0.8 mm long; orbicular–reniform; compressed; the surface papillose; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.
Ploidy:
2n = possibly 48*
Habitat:
Dry coastal cliffs in leeward crevices of shrublands.
Elevation Range:
60–400 (–610) m.