Chironia arenaria E.Mey.

Erect or diffuse suffrutices about 25 cm tall; branches more or less quadrate, 2-4 mm diam. with internodes near the base 5-20 mm long and nodes with prominent persistent leaf-bases. Leaves sessile, linear to narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic, 10-20 mm long, 1.5-4 mm broad, slightly narrowed to an acute or rounded apex, somewhat cuneate at the base where the margins are usually inrolled giving the leaves a spathulate appearance in the dried specimens, minutely papillose, rough with longitudinal corrugations, midrib impressed above, prominent beneath. Flowers terminal on the main branches and on short lateral branches, solitary or in few-flowered cymes. Pedicels smooth, quadrate or fluted, 3-30 mm long. Calyx lobed almost to the base, longer than the corolla tube; lobes broadly ovate-oblong, 4-5 mm long, 3-4 mm broad; margins with a narrow hyaline border, apex more or less acute, midrib decurrent and prominent on the tube. Corolla lobed to about a third from the base; tube about 4 mm long, tubular but abruptly widening above the insertion of the stamens in a short rotate mouth; lobes suborbicular to broadly obovate, about 10 mm long and 7-10 mm broad; top broadly rounded, sometimes shallowly crenate on the margin, retuse or mucronate at the apex. Filaments terete, slightly thickened at the base, about 3 mm long; anthers 5 mm long. Ovary more or less oblong, about 4 mm long, rounded at apex; style about 8.5 mm long, slightly broadened at the truncate apex, eventually hooked in the apical portion; stigma terminal. Fruit not known.