Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbs or subshrubs.

Stems: Stems erect or decumbent, woody near base and herbaceous toward tips, or herbaceous throughout, pubescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic to ovate–lanceolate or scale-like. Apex acute to obtuse. Base acute to obtuse. Surfaces pubescent; blades herbaceous to nearly coriaceous. Margins entire. Sessile or short–petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers axillary near the tips of the branches, sessile or short–pedicellate, bracteoles scale-like. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic, 5-merous. Calyx of 5 sepals, distinct, imbricate, elliptic to obovate, subequal, often pubescent, apex acute to obtuse, persistent, occasionally accrescent. Corolla of 5 fused petals; petals usually white, salverform, the tube short, hidden within the calyx, the lobes imbricate. Stamens 5, distinct, exserted; filaments equal, joined at the glandular pubescent base, inserted on corolla tube base alternate with corolla lobes; anthers dithecal, oblong, extrorse. Ovary superior, ovoid, 1-celled to nearly 2-celled; ovules 4, these erect, anatropous, placentation basal or basal-axile, apex hirsute; styles 2, distinct or nearly so, unequal; stigmas 2, capitate.

Fruit: Capsules 4-valved; often ovoid. Seeds (1)2; brown to nearly black; ovoid; glabrous; endosperm absent or scanty; cartilaginous; cotyledons usually foliaceous.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: