Suffrutescent herb, 20-40 cm, branches strict, erect or ascending to decumbent from slender branching rhizome, 2(-4-6)-lined or narrowly 2-winged when young, sometimes eventually terete. Leaves sessile or very shortly petiolate, 0.8-1.2(-2) by 0.3-0.7 cm, elliptic to oblong or ovate, apex obtuse to rounded, base broadly cuneate to rounded, glaucous beneath, margin recurved (at least when dried), spreading or ascending; c. 4 main lateral veins, ± parallel, slightly branched, uniting near margin and apex, with scarcely visible reticulate venation; laminar glands pale, ± prominent, punctate and shortly striate; intramarginal glands pale or apparently absent. Inflorescence 1-flowered, with or without flowering shoots in uppermost axils, or regularly dichasial with 3-c. 10 flowers; pedicels shorter than uppermost leaves, 4-6 mm in fruit. Flowers 2-2½(-3) cm ø, plane; buds narrowly ovoid, subacute to obtuse. Sepals 4-6 by 1.8-2.4 mm, free, imbricate, lanceolate to oblong or elliptic-oblong, rounded or subapiculate, entire; laminar glands pale, linear and punctate; submarginal glands pale. Petals bright yellow, 10-12(-14) by 4-6 mm, narrowly oblong-obovate, entire to subentire, persistent; apiculus small, glandular; laminar glands pale, linear, becoming striate and punctate distally; marginal glands pale. Stamens not obviously in fascicles (or in 5 fascicles, fide MERRILL), C. 30-60, longest c. 9 mm, c.¾ as long as the petals, persistent; anthers bright yellow, gland amber. Ovary 3-4 mm, broadly to narrowly ovoid; styles 3, c. 5 mm, 1.4-2 times as long as ovary, divergent; stigmas not capitate; placentas 3, axile. Capsule 5-8 by 4-5 mm, narrowly ovoid to ovoid, longitudinally and diagonally vittate. Seeds yellow-brown to dark brown,½-1 mm, cylindric, not carinate, densely linear-scalariform.
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