Annual branched slightly fleshy herb (3–)15–25(–30) cm. tall; stems with upwardly directed tubercle-based bristly white hairs but not obscuring the surface; rootstock slender, little-branched.. Leaf-blades ovate, 1–3.5(–4.5) cm. long, 0.7–2(–3.5) cm. wide, ± acute to narrowly rounded at the apex, abruptly contracted to a cuneate base, with regular adpressed bristly white ± tubercle-based hairs above of unequal size and similar beneath with longer hairs on the nerves; petioles 0.3–1.2 cm. long.. Scorpioid cymes both lateral and terminal, simple in the limited material seen, 1–9 cm. long, the flowers sessile, very dense and touching or at least closely placed, the axes with similar indumentum to the stems.. Calyx ± 2.5–3 mm. long with white bristly spreading hairs; lobes linear-triangular, ± 0.5–1 mm. wide at the base.. Corolla white; tube just under 3(–4 fide Chiovenda) mm. long, the upper 2/3 pubescent outside, the base glabrous; lobes oblong or ± round, 1.2–2 mm. long, 0.8–1.5 mm. wide, rounded.. Anthers 0.9 mm. long, attached about the middle of the tube.. Style 0.8 mm. long, shining, minutely striate; stigma 0.5 mm. long, the narrow apical part papillate, the wider coroniform part grooved.. Fruit depressed ovoid-oblong, 2.5 mm. wide, 1.8 mm. tall, greenish brown, glabrous but clearly papillate under very high magnifications; nutlets 2, the sutures produced at apex laterally so that if viewed from side they appear shortly 2-horned, with 2 obscure furrows, each nutlet 2-seeded.. Fig. 14/4, p. 54.
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