Plants perennial, highly variable, ranging from small, pulvinate, 1-6(-8) cm, often not flowering, to rhizom-atous. Stems erect or trailing, branched, pubescence confined to alternating lines of short, crispate to more elongate hairs; flowering stems erect, 1-6(-8) cm in pulvinate plants, to 20 cm in creeping plants, pubescence spreading to retrorse; nonflowering shoots creeping, elongate, 1-30 cm, with terminal, fleshy, gemmaelike buds; small axillary tufts of leaves absent. Leaves sessile; blade rotund and obovate to ovate, elliptic, or broadly lanceolate, 3-9 × 2-6 mm, succulent, apex ± acute to obtuse; proximal leaves connate at base, blades becoming marcescent, broadly and shortly spatulate, margins and midrib ciliate, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, hairs long, colorless. Inflorescences erect, lax, 1-5(-11)-flowered cymes; bracts elliptic to lanceolate, with or without narrow, scarious margins, with long, strigose hairs. Pedicels erect, usually straight, 1-10(-30) mm, shorter than sepals in pulvinate plants, longer in creeping plants, softly pubescent, hairs patent, of varying lengths, glandular and eglandular. Flowers: sepals often purple tinged, broadly elliptic, 4-6 mm, margins broad, apex round, obtuse, sparsely pubescent, hairs colorless, long, eglandular, and short, glandular; petals obovate, 4-8 mm, 1.5-2 times as long as sepals, apex deeply 2-fid; stamens 10; styles 5. Capsules cylindric, slightly curved, 6-12 mm, 1-2 times as long as sepals; teeth 10, erect to slightly spreading, margins convolute. Seeds dark brown, 1 mm diam., shallowly tuberculate; testa not inflated, tightly enclosing seed. 2n = 72.
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