Annual herb with a long, usually straight taproot. Leaves numerous, all basal, erect or spreading, narrow-linear, (1–) 3–6.5 (–12) cm long, 0.7–2 mm wide, entire or occasionally with 1 or 2 inconspicuous teeth, thick and presumably fleshy when fresh, wrinkled and with an adaxial furrow when dry, coarsely (but often sparsely) pilose with short stout hairs, tapering very gradually to a slender base, the axil villous with white hairs 6–8 mm long, the apex blunt. Scapes numerous, (3–)15–100 in number, (1–)5–8 cm long, 0.5–1 mm diam., densely pilose with spreading or subappressed coarse hairs. Spikes very short or up to 4 cm long in fruit, with 2–26 flowers, compact in flowering stage but the lower flowers widely-spaced at fruiting stage. Bracts deltoid, 1.5–3 mm long, 1.2–1.8 mm wide, not keeled but with a broad thickened central zone 1/2–2/3 of total width and membranous margins, green or rarely dark brown or purplish, glabrous or inconspicuously pilose with short hairs, the apex sometimes minutely ciliate. Sepals elliptic, 2.5–3 mm long, 1.8–2.5 mm wide, similar to bracts in texture, colour and indumentum. Corolla: tube 2–2.5 mm long; lobes deltoid, 0.8–1 mm long, 0.5–0.6 mm wide, with a median brownish stripe near base. Stamens with filaments scarcely exceeding the corolla tube; anthers 0.8 mm long. Ovules 4 (or ?5), the apical ovule not apparent or very small and aborted in fruiting stage. Capsule ellipsoidal, 3.0–3.6 mm long, 1.8–2.4 mm diam.; the lower persistent section not membranous and slightly exceeding the glossy, dark brown, upper section; the apex rounded, with a very small mucro (persistent style base). Seeds 4, yellow-brown, ellipsoidal, c. 2.3–2.8 mm long and 1.2 mm broad, slightly convex adaxially, with a thick mucilaginous layer.
Home