Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or short-lived sprawling to erect perennial herbs to 1 m tall, subwoody and branching at base.

Stems: Stems spreading to decumbent, terete (cylindrical) or sometimes slightly ridged, green to yellow–green, older stems greenish–grey, not or occasionally somewhat hollow, new growth densely to sparsely pubescent with simple, antrorse, uniseriate, translucent, eglandular or sometimes glandular trichomes, these 4–6–celled, 0.5–1 mm long, older stems glabrescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic to slightly ovate, very variable in size, membranous, green, concolorous, without smell, 1.5–8.0(–17) cm long, 1–4 –(9) cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Base cuneate, decurrent on the petiole. Upper surfaces glabrous or sparsely and evenly pubescent with simple uniseriate ca. 4–celled trichomes to 0.5 mm long; lower surfaces glabrous or sparsely pubescent with simple uniseriate trichomes along the veins. Margins entire or shallowly toothed, if present the teeth acute. Mian veins 3–8 pairs, not prominent. Petioles 0.5–3 cm long, sparsely pubescent with antrorse simple uniseriate trichomes like those of the stems. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 1–2 cm long, internodal, unbranched but very rarely furcate, umbelliform to sub–umbelliform, with 3–7 flowers clustered near the tip of the rhachis, sparsely pubescent with antrorse simple uniseriate 3–4-celled trichomes like those of the stems; peduncle 1–3 cm long, straight and stout. Flowers bisexual (perfect), 5-merous. Pedicels 0.4–0.8 cm long, < 0.3 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 0.3 mm in diameter at the apex, filiform, nodding, pubescent like the peduncle, articulated at the base; pedicel scars clustered near the tip of the rhachis, often the lowest flower ca. 0.5 mm spaced from the rest. Calyx tube 1–2 mm long, conical, the lobes often unequal, the lateral two largest 1–1.2 mm long, 0.5–0.6 mm wide, the top and lowermost 0.4–1.0 mm long, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, long triangular often with a rounded tip, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with antrorse simple uniseriate trichomes ca. 0.5 mm long. Corolla 6–10 mm in diameter, white or white with a purplish tinge, stellate, lobed ca. ½ way to the base, the lobes 3.0–4.2 mm long, 1.0–1.2 mm wide, spreading to reflexed, densely papillate on tips and margins. Buds ellipsoid, the corolla strongly exserted from the calyx tube long before anthesis. Stamens equal; filament tube < 0.1 mm long; free portion of the filaments 0.5–1.0 (–1.5) mm long, glabrous or adaxially pubescent with tangled simple uniseriate trichomes; anthers 1.2–1.6 mm long, 0.7–1.0 mm wide, ellipsoid, yellow, somewhat sagittate at the base, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age and drying. Ovary superior, rounded, glabrous; style 3–4 mm long, strongly curved in the distal ¼, densely pubescent with simple uniseriate trichomes 0.2–0.5 mm long, these tangled in the basal ½ to 2/3 of the length, not exserted beyond anthers and only the stigma visible outside the anther cone; stigma capitate, the surfaces minutely papillate.

Fruit: Globose berry; 4–10 mm in diameter; green or bluish–black at maturity; the pericarp thin; matte; fruiting pedicels 0.7–1.5 cm long; ca. 0.5 mm in diameter at the base and the apex; erect or spreading; becoming yellow; falling with the mature fruits; not persistent; fruiting calyx lobes not accrescent; the tube less than 1 mm long; the lobes 1.2–1.7 mm long; appressed to the basal quarter of the berry; occasionally somewhat spreading; never strongly reflexed. Stone cells (0–)2(–4) per berry; >0.5 mm in diameter; brown. Seeds 50–100 per berry; 1.2–2.2 mm long; 0.7–1.8 mm wide; flattened reniform; pale yellowish–tan; the surfaces minutely pitted; thin and the embryo clearly visible; seed coat cells rectangular to pentagonal in outline.

Ploidy: 2n = 6x=72

Habitat: Grows in disturbed areas; along roadsides and field edges.

Elevation Range: