Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems green when young, usually purplish red when exposed to sun, prostrate to weakly ascending, 3–20 cm long, forming irregular mats.

Roots: Taprooted.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate or clustered at the ends of the branches. Blades oblong–elliptic to linear, 4–15(–25) mm long, 0.5–2(–4) mm wide, upper ones occasionally involucrate around the flowers, succulent, tuft of hairs in the axil. Margins entire. Petioles ca. 1–2 mm long, with a tuft of hairs 1–18 mm long in the axil. Stipules 2, connate basally.

Flowers: Flowers (1–)2–10 in congested terminal cymes subtended by a series of involucrate leaves ca. 10–12 mm long. Bracteoles 0.7–2.5 mm long, partly obscured by hairs ca. 3–18 mm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic or rarely slightly irregular, sessile or subsessile. Calyx of 2 sepals; sepals imbricate, persistent, 2.5–5 mm long, margins somewhat scarious, apex sometimes inconspicuously hooded. Corolla of (4)5, magenta, obovate, 5–6(–10) mm long, distinct or connate at base, imbricate. Stamens (7–) 20–30; filaments usually puberulent; anthers globose to elliptic, dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary partly inferior, 2–3(–9)-carpellate, soon becoming 1-celled; ovules numerous, placentation free-central; styles 2–9 and 3–7-branched.

Fruit: Capsules membranous; broadly ellipsoid; ca. 2–3(–4) mm long; circumscissile at or slightly below middle. Seeds dark blue with a metallic luster; the surface tuberculate; especially along margins.

Ploidy: 2n = 16; 18; 36

Habitat: Dry; open; strand to coastal habitats or lava fields.

Elevation Range: 0–620 m.