Annual herb, 10-60 cm, stems erect to ascending or procumbent, branching ± widely, rooting, terete. Leaves 1-3 mm petiolate, 0.9-3 by 0.5-1(-1.6) cm, oblong or lanceolate-elliptic to obovate or subcircular, apex rounded or rarely obtuse, base cuneate or attenuate to rarely rounded, ± glaucous beneath; 3 main lateral veins, not or scarcely branched, uniting near margin and apex; reticulate venation obscure, rather dense to lax; laminar glands pale, very rarely with 1-2 black, large, usually ± prominent, ± dense, punctate; intramarginal glands black, ± dense or irregular. Inflorescence (l-)3-9-flowered, cymose, with sub-sidiary inflorescences on often long lateral branches, monochasial after 1st grade, lax; pedicels exceeding uppermost leaves, 4-13 mm in fruit. Flowers 5-7 mm ø, plane; buds ellipsoid, obtuse. Sepals 2.3-3.4 by 0.5-0.9 mm, free, not imbricate, linear to very narrowly oblong-lanceolate, entire; very acute (or rarely (Nepal) narrowly elliptic-oblong and subacute); laminar glands pale or rarely black, punctate to linear, variable in size and number; marginal glands black, few, sometimes one apical, or all absent. Petals yellow, 4-5½ by l-l¼ mm, oblanceolate, entire, persistent; apiculus small, acute, subapical; laminar glands absent or 1-2, pale, punctate; marginal glands black, 1-2 on or near the apiculus and occasionally also elsewhere. Stamens in 3 fascicles, 9-22, longest (2½-)3-4½ mm, c.¾ as long as the petals; anthers yellow, gland black. Ovary 1½ 2-mm, ± broadly ovoid to subglobose; styles 3(-4), 1-2.1 mm, ⅔-1¼ times as long as the ovary, divergent; stigmas not or scarcely capitate; placentas 3(-4), axile. Capsule 3-5 by 3-5 mm, broadly ovoid to globose, longitudinally vittate. Seeds yellow-brown, 0.5-0.6 mm, cylindric, not carinate, densely shallowly reticulate-scalariform.
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