Plants densely matted, green, not glaucous, with woody base. Stems erect, (8-)10-25 cm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal leaves persistent; cauline leaves usually in 2-4 pairs, reduced distally; basal blades spreading to recurved, needlelike, 1-3(-3.5) cm × 0.5-0.7 mm, flexuous to rigid, herbaceous, apex spinose, glabrous to puberulent, not glaucous. Inflorescences (1-)3-17-flowered, ± open cymes. Pedicels 3-30 mm, glabrous or stipitate-glandular. Flowers: sepals green or purplish, 1-3-veined, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, (3.5-)4-6.5 mm, not enlarging in fruit, margins broad, apex narrowly acute to acuminate, glabrous or stipitate-glandular; petals yellowish white or sometimes brownish to reddish pink, broadly oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 4-6.5 mm, 0.9-1.1 times as long as sepals, apex rounded; nectaries narrowly longitudinally rectangular, apically cleft or emarginate, adjacent to filaments opposite sepals, 1-2 mm. Capsules 4-6 mm, glabrous. Seeds brown, ovoid to suborbicular with hilar notch, 1.2-1.7 mm, papillate, subechinate; tubercles conical.
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