Annual herb. Stem erect, 5-18 cm high, with numerous short, erect branches, with white, more or less patent or appressed hairs. Leaves sessile, linear-lanceolate, needlelike, 0.5-1.8 by c. 1 mm, tapering towards base, acute, with revolute margins, hairs dense, white on both sides as in stem. Cymes with densely crowded flowers, 1.5-2.5 cm long; bracts leaf-like, longer than calyx; pedicels less than 1 mm. Calyx cleft to the base into slightly unequal lobes, 4 lobes 3.5 mm, the fifth 4 mm long, 0.8-1 mm wide, sharply acute, with hairs as in leaves. Corolla white, hairy as calyx outside, 4.5-5 mm long, 2.5-3 mm in diam., tube very narrow, strongly inflated above middle by the anthers, lobes elliptical to ovate, 1.2 mm long, curved inwards when young. Stamens: anthers subsessile, ovoid, 0.5-0.6 mm long, inserted at about 2/3 of length of tube above base. Pistil: style long, filiform in upper part, breaking after flowering above conical base that is persistent in fruit; stigma short conical. Fruit breaking up into 4 nutlets; nutlets short-ovoid, covered with very short, appressed hairs in upper part.
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