Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual herbs 0.8–7 dm tall, usually dark purplish green.

Stems: Stems erect, unbranched or branched in the upper part, hispid with somewhat spreading hairs, the hairs white, ± pustulate–based.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Subopposite. Lower blades oblong to oblanceolate, upper ones linear, 5–40 mm long, 2–6 mm wide. Surfaces hispid–scabrid. Margins entire to deeply dentate. (1–)3-veined. Sessile. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal, lax to congested racemes up to 15(–24) cm long; bracteoles 2, upper bracts ca. 4–5 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Calyx tubular, 5.5–7 mm long, without nerves between the 10 principal nerves, these hispid–scabrid, glabrous between them, the teeth acuminate, spreading to reflexed in fruit. Corolla white, pink, lilac, or purple, salverform, the throat with short hairs, 8–9 mm long, subequally 5-lobed, the lobes 2–3 mm long. Stamens 4, included, slightly didynamous; anthers 1-celled. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells; ovule placentation axile; style solitary, terminal.

Fruit: Capsules loculicidal; oblong; compressed; 5–6.5 mm long. Seeds numerous; endosperm oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Disturbed area.

Elevation Range: ca. 180 m.