Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Spreading shrubs up to 1 m tall, woody shrubs; main branches bearing short lateral branches.

Stems: Branches stiff, bark pale, glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate on primary shoots, clustered on condensed lateral shoots; appearing clustered on extremely condensed axillary branchlets. Blades spatulate to linear–spatulate, somewhat succulent, 0.6–3.5 cm long, 0.2–0.8 cm wide. Apex rounded. Base tapering to slender base. Margins entire. Subsessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary in the axils, pedicels 6–12 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx campanulate, 4-lobed, 3–4 mm long, the lobes triangular. Corolla whitish or bluish to pink, tubular expanding to a 4-lobed limb, the tube 0.3–0.4 cm long, not exceeding calyx, the lobes ovate, 5–6 mm long, spreading reticulate-veined. Stamens 4, glabrous, inserted on corolla throat; filaments pilose below; anthers dithecal, opening longitudinally. Ovary superior, 2-celled, subtended by an annular disk, placentation axile; ovules numerous; style 1, slender; stigma capitate with 2 oblique stigmatic surfaces.

Fruit: Berries red; succulent; globose; ca. 8 mm in diameter. Seeds numerous.

Ploidy: 2n = 24*

Habitat: Occurring in subsaline and rocky coastal sites.

Elevation Range: 0–40 m.