Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Subshrubs, bark gray to pale brown.

Stems: Stems ascending, 0.2–0.6 m long, glabrous, flowering branches 1–1.5 mm in diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite, decussate. Blades elliptic to obovate or oblanceolate, rarely spatulate,10–30 mm long, 5–15 mm wide. Apex rounded to obtuse, rarely acute, mucronulate or retuse. Base cuneate, oblique. Surfaces glabrous, glaucous. Margins entire. Petioles 0.5–2.5 mm long, glabrous. Stipules rounded–triangular, 0.5–1 mm long, glabrous, ciliate, erose, occasionally bifid.

Flowers: Flowers in cyathia solitary in the leaf axils, peduncles 1–4 mm long, glabrous. involucre campanulate, 1.5–2 mm high, 2–3 mm wide, glabrous or rarely sparsely pubescent beneath the glands, glands 4–5, purple, rarely with a narrow white appendage, glabrous. 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 red, shortly bifid up to one–fourth their length, 0.5–1 mm long; stigma not thickened.

Fruit: Capsules green to red; 3–angled; 2–3 mm long; glabrous; gynophores recurved; exserted 1.5–3 mm from involucre; glabrous. Seeds reddish brown to gray; 1.5–1.8 mm long; smooth to faintly rugose.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Bogs.

Elevation Range: 600–800 m.