Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annual or short lived perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems striate, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with simple hairs on young growth.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades ovate to broadly lanceolate, 2.5–7 cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Base subcuneate, oblique. Margins entire. Petioles narrowly winged above, 0.8–2 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary in the leaf axils and stem forks or more commonly 2–4 per axil, pedicels 1–2.5 cm long, stout in fruit, erect. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic. Calyx cupular, truncate, 3–4 mm long, the lobes minute. Corolla greenish white or greenish yellow, divided ca. 1⁄2 to base, the lobes triangular, ca. 1.5 cm in diameter. Stamens 5, inserted toward base of corolla tube; filaments ca. 1–2 mm long; anthers bluish, oblong, opening by slits, 1.5–2 mm long. Ovary superior, 2-celled, ovate, 1.5–2 mm long; style 1, erect, 3–4 mm long; stigma small, terminal.

Fruit: Berries erect; usually bright red; rarely purple or yellow; pungent; ellipsoid–conical to lanceoloid; 10–20 mm long; 3–7 mm in diameter. Seeds yellowish; flattened–lenticular; 3–4 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 24

Habitat: Low elevation; dry to mesic; disturbed areas.

Elevation Range: