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Dwarf shrub, up to 0.5 m high. Stems erect or decumbent, glabrous or hispidulous. Leaves with blade linear to broadly linear, 15-25 x 2-4 mm, margin with 6-9 teeth, swollen when dry, prominently veined, leathery in texture. Flowers: in 2-8-flowered dichasia; sepals ovate, 4-5 mm long, apices acuminate; petals slightly longer than sepals, white or pink; Jul.-Apr. Fruit narrowly ovoid; seeds black.
Leaves opposite, sessile or subsessile, 1–4 × 0·15–0·8 cm., linear to linear-lanceolate, acute or acuminate at the apex, gradually narrowed to the base, margin sharply serrate, glabrous on both sides or with a pubescence of several-celled hyaline hairs; stipules 3–5 mm. long, subulate, scarious-margined, glandular-denticulate, attenuate to a sharp point.
Sepals 5, 3–4 × 0·75–1·25 mm., oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate, subulate-acuminate and curving outwards somewhat at the apex, dorsally keeled, membranous and ciliolate at the margins, or the latter often entire when overlapped by an adjacent sepal, sometimes pubescent on the back.
Flowers white with ovary showing pinkish or purple, in few-or many-flowered verticillate clusters towards the ends of the branches; pedicels 1–4 mm. long, with a hyaline pubescence; bracts c. 1·5 mm. long, setaceous, sparsely glandular-ciliolate.
Ovary c. 1 × 1·3 mm., 5-locular, 5-ribbed longitudinally, ovoid, pinkish or purplish, very minutely and darkly pustulate; ovules many; styles 5, c. 1·5 mm. long; stigmatic apices slightly capitate.
Stamens 10, those opposite the petals shorter, 2–2·3 mm. long, filaments not broadened; those alternating with the petals 2·2–2·5 mm. long, filaments noticeably widened towards the base.
Small undershrub, 200-500 mm tall. Leaves linear, usually glabrous, hard and shiny when dry, with swollen margin and prominent veins, the 6-9 teeth widely spaced. Flowers white or pink.
A perennial with spreading or decumbent stems from a woody rootstock; branchlets pubescent with several-celled hyaline hairs or soon glabrescent.
Seeds c. 0·55 × 0·15 mm., subcylindric, blunt at both ends, minutely tessellated, almost black.
Petals 5, as long as the sepals, oblanceolate.
Capsule splitting when ripe into 5 valves.
