Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems ascending to erect, 1–2 dm long, rather sparsely branched, appressed pilose with white silky hairs.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades oblong–lanceolate to oblong–obovate, 1.5–4.5 cm long, 0.5–1.3 cm wide. Base attenuate. Upper surfaces subglabrous; lower surfaces white pilose, often densely white pilose in the leaf axils. Margins entire. Short-petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in terminal and axillary, cylindrical spikes 1–2 cm long and ca. 1 cm in diameter, rachis and upper part of stems densely white pilose, lower flowers deciduous after anthesis and rachis tending to elongate, sometimes resulting in a bract–bearing rachis 3–5 cm long with flowers persistent only in a terminal rounded tuft. Each inflorescence subtended by a pair of leaves shorter than the inflorescence, bracts ovate, ca. 3 mm long, apex acuminate, the midrib shortly excurrent into a sharp point, bracteoles 4.5–5.5 mm long, laterally compressed, keeled, dorsal crest along the keel variously developed, confined to upper ⅓ of bracteole, often inconspicuous with 1–2 teeth, occasionally well–developed near apex of bracteole, sometimes absent or vestigial. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx ca. 4–4.5 mm long, the lobes narrow, attenuate. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 5; filaments connate into a slender tube; anthers monothecal. Ovary superior, 2–3(4)-carpellate, the carpels connate to form a compound, 1-celled ovary; ovule placentation basal, free-central, or rarely apical; subglobose; stigmas 2, branches divergent or becoming erect.

Fruit: Fruit in indehiscent utricle; usually somewhat flattened; utricles ca. 1.7 mm long. Seeds 1 per fruit; the surface usually lustrous; endosperm essentially absent; brown; lustrous; ca. 1.5 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 26

Habitat:

Elevation Range: