Heliophila elongata Dc.

Perennial shrublets 20-60 cm high, erect or virgate, or with annual stems from a woody crown, sometimes with the leaves crowded near the base. Branches sulcate with decurrent lines from the base of the leaves, glabrous. Leaves 1-11 cm long, 1.5-7 mm broad, obovate-elliptic to oblanceolate, or elliptic to lanceolate to linear, acute or acuminate, leathery or fleshy, entire or with a few sharp teeth or small lobes; subtended by 2 subulate stipules; some of the lower leaves usually with oblong or rounded, paired glands in their axils. Racemes terminal; in the lower part of the inflorescence sometimes sterile pedicels with enlarged, paired, nectary glands similar to the ones in the leaf-axils. Pedicels subtended by 2 subulate-filiform bracts, 6-9 mm long in flower, erect; 1.2-1.5 cm long in fruit, recurved. Sepals 5-6 mm long, 2-3 mm broad; outer 2 oblong to elliptic, cucullate, thickened; inner 2 oblong, strongly saccate, with broad membranous margins. Petals 7.5-9.5 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, oblong-spathulate to elongate-cuneate, very broadly clawed. Filaments 5-6.8 mm and 5.8-7.8 mm long. Anthers 1-1.3 mm long. Ovary linear with a very long style; ovules 20-36. Fruits 5-8 cm long, 2.5-3.5 mm broad, pendulous, linear with straight margins; valves flat, clearly or obscurely 1-nerved, sometimes faintly pinnately veined; style 0.7-2 cm long, stout, tapering, thick at the base. Seeds 2.3-3 x 2.1-2.5 mm, sub-circular to oblong-rectangular, brown, very narrowly margined.