Plants tufted or sometimes mat-ted, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems ± erect, 3-40(-50) cm, glabrous or often stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal leaves persistent or not; cauline leaves in 3-5 pairs, similar, but reduced distally; basal blades erect-ascending to arcuate-spreading, subulate or needlelike to filiform, (0.8-)2-11(-14) cm × 0.4-2 mm, flexuous or rigid, herbaceous to ± fleshy, apex obtuse to sharply acute or spinose, glabrous, sometimes glaucous. Inflorescences 3-50+-flowered, congested and capitate or sometimes open, umbellate cymes. Pedicels 0.1-7(-15) mm or ± absent, usually glabrous, rarely stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals 1-3-veined, sometimes obscurely so, ovate to lanceolate, 3-6.5 mm, not expanding in fruit, margins narrow, apex obtuse or acute to acuminate, rarely spinose, glabrous (or glandular in var. prolifera); petals white, oblong, 5-8(-10) mm, 1.5-2 times as long as sepals, apex entire to slightly emarginate; nectaries as lateral and abaxial mound with crescent-shaped groove at base of filaments opposite sepals, 0.3 × 0.15-0.2 mm. Capsules 3.5-6 mm, glabrous. Seeds reddish brown to black, broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, 1.4-3 mm, tuberculate; tubercles low, rounded, often elongate.
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