Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Stiff, tufted, rhizomatous or stoloniferous, usually low perennial herb, prostrate at stem base.

Stems: Stems erect to spreading, forming spreading clumps, 1.5–10 dm long, few–branched, scabrous or hirsute.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades oblong to oblong–lanceolate or oblong–lanceolate, rigid, 7.5–10 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide. Apex acute. Base subcordate and somewhat clasping the stem. Surfaces scabrous to hispidulous; blades Upper surfaces also rugose. Margins somewhat revolute, coarsely serrate. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers glandular pubescent throughout, in terminal, short, dense, cylindrical spikes 1–5 cm long, these usually 3 in a decussate arrangement; Bracts lanceolate or subulate-lanceolate, as long as or up to 2–3 times longer than calyx. Flowers bisexual (perfect), alternate, nearly zygomorphic. Calyx red or green, cylindrical, 4–6 mm long, 5-toothed, the teeth subequal. Corolla showy, usually purple to magenta, ca. 9–12 mm long, 5-lobed, imbricate. Stamens 4, in 2 pairs, inserted on and included in corolla tube; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 4-lobed, 2-carpellate, 4-celled, placentation axile; ovules 1 per cell, attached laterally or near base, erect, anatropous; style 2-lobed, the lobes dissimilar, only 1 stigmatic.

Fruit: Schizocarps readily separating at maturity into 4 crustaceous nutlets; pericarp hard and dry. Seeds 1 per nutlet; oblong; triangular in cross section; endosperm essentially absent.

Ploidy: 2n = 42

Habitat:

Elevation Range: