Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Succulent subshrubs 3–12 dm tall.

Stems: Stems erect, many-branched, subglabrous.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple, rarely compound. Alternate; distichous, closely spaced. Blades in line with petioles, oblong–obovate to oblong–elliptic, slightly asymmetrical, 1.2–5 cm long, 0.8–1.5(2) cm wide. Surfaces glabrous or with a few hairs along the veins. Margins crenate–serrate and sparsely ciliate. Petioles 0.3–0.5(–0.8) cm long. Stipules brown, oblong–lanceolate, 0.4–1 cm long, somewhat persistent.

Flowers: Flowers in cymes 5–10 cm long, these sometimes arranged in leafy panicles. Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious), often somewhat irregular. 2–30, pendent, red or rose-colored. Pedicels 5–25 mm long, bracts similar to stipules, persistent. Perianth parts usually distinct, rarely inconsistently connate, staminate flowers usually consisting of 4 parts in 2 opposite pairs, the lower apparently represent the Calyx, the upper representing the corolla, occasionally only 2 parts or more than 4; pistillate flowers usually consisting of a single imbricate series of 5 Perianth parts or sometimes 2–4(6–8). Perianth of pistillate flowers in 5, white to red, subequal, elliptic, 6–13 mm long. Stamens numerous; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits or occasionally by terminal pores, the connective usually protruded above the pollen sacs or sometimes well separating them. Ovary inferior, (2)3(6)-carpellate, with as many cells or rarely the placental partitions not complete and thus 1-celled, placentation axile or, when ovary 1-celled, parietal; ovules numerous, anatropous; styles distinct or sometimes connate, usually 2-lobed; stigmas usually twisted.

Fruit: Loculicidal capsules; usually with prominent unequal or equal wings; sometimes fleshy and indehiscent; capsules broadly ellipsoid; the largest wing ovate; ca. 10 mm wide. Seeds numerous and small; endosperm essentially absent; reticulate.

Ploidy: 2n = 24; over 40; 50–60; 84

Habitat:

Elevation Range: