Erect or reclining suffruticose perennials to 1 m. high, the younger branches glabrous or scantily strigose below, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, apically attenuate and mucronate, basally acute to attenuate, 5-10 cm. long, 0. 5-3 cm. broad; petioles 0.5-2 cm. long. Inflorescence a panicle of alternate pedunculate ovoid spikes, these occasionally subtended by reduced linear leaves, the rhachises glabrate or puberulent. Flowers perfect, the bracts and bracteoles subequal, broadly ovate, mucronate, concave, entire, transparent, 0.5-1 mm. long, with a conspicuous mass of tawny hairs arising between the bracts and the sepals; sepals 5, subequal, oblong-ovate, acute 3-nerved, 1-1.5 mm. long; stamens 5, united below into a shallow tube with obsolete pseudostaminodia; ovary obovoid; style 1, slightly shorter than the 2 papillose filiform stigmata. Fruit an indehiscent utricle, 0.5-1 mm. long; seeds reddish brown, cochleate-orbiculate, 0.6-0.8 mm. broad.
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