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Annual herb, erect with decumbent, ascending or spreading branches, up to 20 cm high; indumentum of curved hairs. Leaves oblanceolate, narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong, 4–22 mm long, 2–8 mm wide; apex obtuse or rounded, rarely some leaves acute, mucro 0.1–0.3 mm long; petiole 0–1 mm long. Inflorescence supra-axillary, a raceme to 2 mm long, not exceeding the leaves. Pedicel to 0.5 mm long. Alae perpendicular or deflexed in fruit (position), herbaceous, ovate to lanceolate, falcate or dimidiate, 2.40–2.95 mm long, 1.0–1.3 mm wide, with curved hairs or glabrescent. Corolla purple, white or yellow (from dried material only); floral appendages fimbriate; upper petal claw c. 0.25 mm wide. Stamens terminate at stigma, triadelphous (fused as 3, 2, 3); staminal flap c. 0.25 mm wide. Style curved in apical half, truncate at apex with sterile tip distal to ± globular stigma, style with narrow groove at apex; in dried state dorso-ventrally flattened. Capsule deflexed, becoming reflexed, ± aligned with alae or apex of alae diverging at c. 45° from capsule, lacking wing, ± symmetrical, widely ovoid to orbicular, 2.1–2.5 mm long, 1.9–2.2 mm wide; lobe apices rounded and separated. Seed ovoid to ellipsoid, 1.90–2.10 mm long, 0.90–1.15 mm wide, with indumentum of fine white. Aril head hooked to round, 0.2–0.4 mm long, white, with short erect hairs. Aril appendages 3, linear, 0.25–0.6 mm long.
Annual, erect to prostrate, branched herb up to 50 (-70) cm high. Stem terete, set with short curved hairs. Leaves elliptic to lanceolate, 2-20 by 1-7 mm, subsessile, acute to mucronate, with slightly recurved margin, sparsely hairy to subglabrous, 1-nerved. Racemes supra-axillary, up to 1 cm long, few-flowered and cluster-like. Bracts persistent, minute, acute, cil-iate. Flowers c. 2.5—3(—3.5) mm long, light to deep blue, turning violet, alae green and often partly red. Sepals lanceolate, acuminate, ciliate, alae asymmetric, 5-nerved. Upper petals ± spathulate, emarginate, shorter than the keel; keel auriculate, at apex with 2 much-incised appendages. Staminal tube split halfway, with 2 single filaments and 2 bundles of 3 fully connate filaments with sessile anthers. Ovary broadly elliptic, ciliolate and sometimes minutely hairy; style curved in apical half, apically widened, stunted, on one side with a sterile, more or less pronounced tip, the other side (situated at inner side) with a more or less pronounced stigmatic lobe. Capsule shorter but wider than the alae, c. 1.5 mm long, almost orbicular, very narrowly winged, ciliolate, further glabrous to sparsely hairy. Seeds oblong, at micropylar side with an unequally 3-lobed aril, black, hairy.
