Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs with cylindrical, irregularly tapering, branched taproots up to ca. 2 cm in diameter.

Stems: Flowering stems decumbent, 2–5(–7) dm long, many-branched, sparsely covered with coarse retrorse hairs, sometimes glabrate.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite and basal. Blades suborbicular to reniform in outline, 1.5–3 cm long, 2–6 cm wide. Surfaces sparsely appressed pubescent. Margins deeply palmately 3–7(–9)-lobed, the lobes oblong–obovate, these again divided, the central lobe nearly as wide as long. Petioles usually 4–10 cm long, those of basal leaves up to ca. 30 cm long. Stipules linear-lanceolate, 3–6 mm long, ciliate or glabrous.

Flowers: Flowers usually in pairs in the leaf axils; peduncles and pedicels slender, Peduncles 1.8–2.4 cm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic; pedicels 1.5–2.2 cm long, moderately retrorsely appressed pubescent, subtended by narrow bracts. Calyx of 5 sepals, often mucronate or awn–tipped, distinct or sometimes connate at base, rarely forming a tube, outer sepals ovate–elliptic, inner ones elliptic–obovate, 3–3.5 mm long, with 3 prominent veins, pubescence usually confined to veins and toward base, apex with an awn 0.8–1 mm long. Corolla of 5 petals, pale pink, distinct, nectary glands alternate with the petals, obovate, 2–4.5 mm long. Stamens (5)10; filaments ± connate at base, those alternate with the petals longer than others and with basal glands; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior or nearly so, 5-celled, carpels connate around a central column to form a compound ovary with as many cells, fertile portion a lobed ring at base of stylar column, placentation axile; ovules 2 per cell, anatropous to campylotropous, usually pendulous; styles 3–5, slender and beak-like, sometimes narrowed below apex, stylar column elongating to 8–11 mm long in fruit; stigmas slender and dry, rarely capitate.

Fruit: Septicidal and elastically dehiscent capsules separating into as many segments as carpels; carpel bodies ca. 3 mm long; pubescent; a portion of the style splitting off from remainder of stylar column and forming an awn that recurves upward from the persistent central column; usually remaining attached to apex; sometimes the awn also becomes spirally coiled; awn usually hygroscopic. Seeds 1–2 per segment; smooth or reticulate; released from carpel body; reddish brown; oblong; ca. 2 mm long; the surface conspicuously reticulate; endosperm usually scanty or absent; rarely copious and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in disturbed areas; primarily pastures.

Elevation Range: 1,130–2,150 m.