Erect herb to 60 cm, glabrous or puberulent on younger parts; white cystoliths often present on the leaves, bracts, bracteoles, occasionally on the sepals; pu-bescence long transparent, sometimes viscous; stem sometimes subligneous at the base, to 6 mm diam. often with glandular hairs, these inconspicuous when lacking secretion; internodes 1.5-4 mm; roots fibrous, branched; rhizome cylin-dric, slender. Leaves alternate, subopposite or pseudoverticillate; leaflets oblong obovate to suborbicular, the lateral leaflets asymmetric, 9-25 mm long, 5-22 mm wide, glabrous or with hairs on the nerves below and fine ciliate, obtuse or retuse, basally subpeltate or barely auriculate; petiole to 4 cm long, canaliculate, often narrowly winged; rachis to 6 mm long. Inflorescences of cymes taller than the foliage, loosely 10-25-flowered; peduncle to 6 cm long, bifid with long branches, one branch aborted or shortened; bract and bracteoles overlapping, bracts ca. 3 mm long, bracteoles ca. 1.5-2.5 mm, foliaceous, lanceolate, acuminate, greenish or red-striate, appressed to the rachis, subamplexicaul, pedicels ca. 3 mm long, glabrous, rarely pubescent, articulate near the base. Flowers with the sepals greenish, the margins hyaline, ovate and acuminate or oblong 4.5-7 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, glabrous, acute; petals yellow-orange, obovate-subspatulate, 7-13 mm long; stamens longer, ca. 2.5 mm long, pubescent with a thin ligule, acute in the lower half, the shorter stamens ca. 1.25 mm long, glabrous; pistils ca. 3 mm wide, the ovary oblong, the carpels to 10-ovuled, the styles thin, pubescent, the stigma capitate. Capsule oblong to ellipsoid, ca. 10 cm long, the calyx to 2/3 of its length, glabrous, the carpels 7-10-seeded, inside densely and finely pubescent; seeds rusty, ca. 1 mm across, subpyriform, 5-6-ribbed in zig-zag, transversally striate and tuberculate at the intersections.
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