Herbs, perennial, weak to procumbent. Stems 6-40 cm, sharply 4-angled, glabrous, smooth, rough or sparsely retrorsely aculeolate; internodes 6.5-33 mm; nodes ± hairy. Middle stem leaves in whorls of up to 6, sessile; blade drying papery, often blackening, linear-oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 2-12.5 × 0.4-2 mm, glabrous, smooth or sparsely retrorsely aculeolate on midrib abaxially, adaxially with relatively large epidermal cells (use 20× lens), base acute, margins flat to thinly revolute, apex acute then contracted and mucronate; vein 1. Inflorescences axillary, with 1-or occasionally 3-flowered cymes; pedicels 0.2-1.5 mm, glabrous, smooth. Ovary ellipsoid-obovoid, ca. 0.5 mm, glabrous, smooth. Corolla white or pale green (perhaps sometimes drying pink), rotate, 1.5-2.7 mm in diam.; lobes 4, lanceolate-spatulate, glabrous beneath, puberulent above, with shortly acuminate apex, clearly longer than stamens. Mericarps ellipsoid, 0.7-1.1 × 1-1.5 mm, glabrous, granular-verruculose, with pedicels often elongating to 3.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.
Home