Erect herbs to 45 cm tall, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes; lower stems stout, soft, the upper stems slender, puberulent with weak, curled whitish hairs, drying angled; roots short and fibrous. Leaves opposite, narrowly oblong, to 3 cm long and 8 mm wide, apically obtuse or acute, basally clasping, not narrowed into a petiole, the margins entire or minutely denticulate, sometimes slightly inrolled, the midvein prominent, the lateral venation palmate, strongly ascending, obscure, glabrous, both sides punctate with numerous sessile annular glands. Inflores-cences geminate fascicles of 1-5 flowers in the leaf axils, the subtending leaves sometimes reduced to small bracts; pedicels to 1 mm long, ebracteate, drying angled. Flowers minute, calyx ca. 1.5 mm long, lobed to the base, the outer lobes ovate, to 0.7 mm wide, prominently costate, conspicuously punctate with sessile, annular glands, the inner 2 lobes narrow, acute, minutely ciliate; corolla white or bluish white, tubular, 4-lobed, exserted ca. 0.5 mm from the calyx, white drying orange; stamens 4, the filaments glabrous, unequal, inserted high on the corolla tube, the anthers yellow, dorsifixed, the thecae proximal, the upper '/2 connate; ovary ellipsoid, reddish, smooth but sometimes drying longitudinally nervate, ca. 0.7 mm long, the style discrete, positioned on a minute pedicel, compressed, the stigma convolute, crestlike. Capsule ca. 1.5 mm long, splitting to the base, the valves indurate, eglandular; seeds numerous.
Home