Herbs annual, erect, 5-15 cm tall. Stems simple or much branched, longitudinally angular, glabrous. Petiole 5-10 mm, narrowly winged; leaf blade green, ovate or elliptic to broadly elliptic, 8-25 × 6-15 mm, papery, sparsely pubescent, penniveined, base cuneate, decurrent, margin entire, ciliate, apex acute. Racemes terminal, after anthesis to 6 cm; bracteoles 2, caducous, lanceolate, ca. 1 mm. Sepals 5, caducous after anthesis, green; outer sepals 3, ovate or elliptic, small, ca. 1 mm; inner sepals 2, petaloid, narrowly obovate, ca. 2 mm, apex retuse-rounded. Petals 3, connate in lower 2/3, red to purple-red; keel slightly shorter than lateral petals, tuberculate, apex rounded, without appendage. Stamens 8; filaments lower 3/4 united, forming an open staminal sheath; anthers ovoid. Ovary globose, ca. 0.5 mm in diam.; style curved, ca. 2 mm, apex funnelform, with oblique lobes; stigma on lower lobe. Capsule compressed-orbicular, ca. 2 mm in diam., sparsely pubescent, narrowly winged, apex mucronate. Seeds black, suboblong, ca. 1.5 mm, ca. 1 mm in diam., white pubescent; strophiole cucullate, small. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Sep-Nov.
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Herb up to 25 cm. Stem glabrous, faintly ribbed. Leaves ovate to obovate, 2-35 by 1-20 mm, acute, base attenuate, laxly short-hairy, ciliate, 0.5-1 cm petioled. Racemes terminal, including the peduncle 1-10.5 cm; bracts and bracteoles early caducous. Flowersc. 1.5-2 mm long, glabrous, rosa-red to purple. Sepals blunt, the alae obovate, 5-nerved. Upper petals oblong, slightly longer than the keel; the keel inappendiculate, apically minutely papillose. Filaments free for c. ¼. Ovary orbicular; style curved and widened in apical half, obliquely truncate. Capsule symmetric, ± quadrangular with rounded edges, apically to orbicular, c. 2 mm long, very narrowly winged all round (wings not visibly cross-veined), the truncate apex mucronate. Seed ellipsoid, not tuberculate, shortly hairy, at micro-pylar side with an obliquely lobed aril, at chalazal side inappendiculate.
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