Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems up to 6 dm long, glabrous.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate below, opposite or verticillate above. Blades broadly ovate to lanceolate–ovate, blades 2–7 cm long, 0.2–3 cm wide. Apex obtuse to acute. Base rounded to acute. Surfaces glabrous or with a few scattered hairs; green, reduced floral leaves occasionally white. Margins entire. Petioles up to 3 cm long. Stipules minute and gland-like.

Flowers: Flowers in cyathia in open terminal cymes. pistillate flowers solitary, on a gynophore; staminate flowers in 5 groups or cymules, each with 1 to several flowers. involucre 0.8–1.3 mm high, glabrous, glands 2–4, green, appendages petaloid, white, oblong, 0.6–1 mm long. Flowers unisexual and highly reduced. Calyx (sepals) absent. Corolla (petals) absent. Male flower reduced to a single stamen, with an articulation at junction of pedicel and filament, subtended by slender bracteoles. Ovary superior, 3-carpellate; ovules 1 per cell, anatropous.

Fruit: Capsules nearly globose; 1.5–2 mm long; glabrous. Seeds gray ovoid; 1.6–1.8 mm long; tuberculate; deeply pitted; ecarunculate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Raised coralline plains at sea level.

Elevation Range: