Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Prostrate perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems pink, apparently decumbent, up to 60 cm or more long, sparsely finely puberulent, internodes 4–15 cm long, very sparsely branched except in inflorescence, nodes with a transverse ridge bearing a line of pubescence, angle of branching narrow.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades triangular–ovate, up to 7 cm long and 4.5 cm wide. Apex bluntly acute to obtuse. Base obtuse to subtruncate. Surfaces subglabrous, pale green on upper surface; lower surfaces very pale. Margins slightly scabrous. Petioles 0.4–1 cm long, puberulent. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers 2–4 borne in glomerules, these umbellately arranged on long slender peduncles 6–7.5 cm long, arising in the leaf axils on alternate sides, these clusters on the leafless distal half or more of plant, glabrous throughout or nearly so, forming a very openly paniculate inflorescence, the panicle branches ascending, 1 branch of primary and secondary axis always much larger than other, larger ones on alternate sides, ramified up to 6 times, penultimate branches usually umbellate, each ray or branchlet bearing a glomerule of 1–4 or more flowers, each branch of inflorescence subtended by a bract, these successively smaller and more narrowly lanceolate, penultimate ones lanceolate–subulate, those subtending glomerules and flowers ovate, subulate-acuminate, straw colored–hyaline with dark purple acumen, glandular ciliolate. Involucre absent. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx shallowly 5–ribbed, 2–2.5 mm long, constricted near the middle, lower half green, obovoid, glabrous or sparsely puberulent in grooves, limb pink, drying yellowish pink, very broadly cylindrical–campanulate, ventricose at base, glabrous except sparsely puberulent distally. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 3; anthers exserted, opened cells orbicular. Ovary superior, sessile, 1-celled; ovule 1, basal; style 1, filiform, unbranched; stigma capitate or somewhat disk–shaped, exserted.

Fruit: Anthocarps ellipsoid to clavate; 3–3.5 mm long; somewhat constricted at base; apex rounded–subtruncate; 5 ribs prominent; glabrous; furrows minutely glandular; appearing glabrous; with a few very narrow raphide bundles longitudinally placed. Seeds 1 per fruit; closely enclosed by the thin ovary wall.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring behind beaches and rocky shores; and above on dry slopes and ridges.

Elevation Range: below 50 m.