Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems prostrate, 6–15 dm long, many-branched, forming spreading mats.

Roots: Taprooted.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades elliptic, elliptic–oblong to spatulate, occasionally narrowly ovate, 1–3 cm long, 0.5–1.5 cm wide. Upper surfaces sparsely mealy pubescent to glabrate; lower surfaces densely mealy pubescent. Margins irregularly and remotely repand–dentate, sometimes upper ones entire. Subsessile or short-petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary clusters; staminate flowers without subtending bracts; pistillate flowers each subtended by 2 accrescent bracts enclosing the fruit. Flowers unisexual (and the plants monoecious). Calyx of staminate flowers with 3–5 lobes. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens in staminate flowers 3–5, inserted on calyx at base; pistillate flowers Stamens absent; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior (pistillate flowers), 2–3(–5)-carpellate, 1-celled; ovule 1, placentation basal; stigmas 2, filiform, dry.

Fruit: Utricle with membranous pericarp; enclosed by the persistent bracts; fruiting bracts thick and fleshy; reddish–tinged to red; connate ca. ½ their length; rhombic; 4–6 mm long; apex with a large triangular tooth; sometimes also with a few smaller lateral teeth. Seeds 1 per fruit; black or dark brown; 1.5–2 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 18

Habitat: Dry to seasonally wet areas.

Elevation Range: 0–150 m.