Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Subshrubs.

Stems: Stems prostrate to decumbent, 0.05–0.4 m long, nodose, often tortuous and gnarled, pilose to villous, flowering branches 1–1.5 mm in diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, distichous. Blades orbicular or elliptic to reniform, 5–20(–25) mm long, 5–15(–25) mm wide. Apex rounded to obtuse, retuse, sometimes mucronulate. Base cordate. Surfaces glabrous or pubescent at basal margin to pilose, glaucous. Margins entire. Petioles 0.5–1 mm long, villous. Stipules rounded–triangular, 1–2 mm long, glabrous or villous, erose, ciliate.

Flowers: Flowers in cyathia solitary primarily at the ends of the branches, peduncles 0.5–1 mm long, pilose to villous. involucre campanulate, 1.5–2 mm high, 1.5–2 mm wide, glabrous to pilose, glands 4, green, glabrous to pilose, unappendaged. Flowers unisexual and highly reduced. Pistillate flowers solitary, on a gynophore; staminate flowers in 5 groups or cymules, each with 1 to several flowers. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Male flower reduced to a single stamen, with an articulation at junction of pedicel and filament, subtended by slender bracteoles. Ovary superior; styles green to white, bifid ½ their length, 0.5–1 mm long, sparsely pubescent; stigma slightly thickened.

Fruit: Capsules green; (1.5–)2–2.5 mm long; glabrate to pilose; gynophores recurved; exserted 1.5–2 mm from involucre; pilose or rarely glabrous. Seeds white; 1.5–1.8 mm long; rugose.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Coastal and strand vegetation.

Elevation Range: 0–50 m.