Plants annual, glabrous or glan-dular-pubescent. Stems ascending or decumbent, frequently purple tinged, few-to many-branched, filiform. Leaves: axillary fascicles absent; basal rosette quickly de-ciduous; proximal cauline leaves connate basally, not appearing inflated, blade frequently purple tinged, linear, 4-23 mm, not fleshy, base never ciliate, margins conspicuously hyaline basally, apex apiculate, glabrous, distal blades becoming subulate and shorter toward apex, 1-5 mm, apex apiculate, glabrous. Pedicels filiform, glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Flowers terminal or often axillary, 5-merous, rarely 4-merous and then apetalous; calyx base glabrous or glandular-pubescent, often sparsely so; sepals ovate to orbiculate, (1-)1.5-2(-3) mm, hyaline margins conspicuous, margins or apex frequently purple, apex acute to rounded, glabrous or glandular-pubescent at calyx base, remaining appressed to capsule; petals elliptic, (1-)1.5-2(-2.3) mm, slightly longer than sepals at anthesis, equaling or shorter than sepals during capsule development; stamens 5 or 10, occasionally 8. Capsules 2-3(-3.5) mm, longer than sepals, dehiscing to 2 capsule length or less. Seeds light tan to light brown, obliquely triangular with abaxial groove, (0.2-)0.3-1.4 mm, smooth or pebbled to strongly tuberculate, protrusions sometimes borne on delicate ridges, ridges forming reticulate pattern (50-80×).
More
Slender, branching annual, ascending or decumbent, 3–10(–15) cm, often with short sterile axillary shoots; fls terminating the slender branches, commonly some also on slender, axillary glabrous pedicels 10–15 mm; sep 5(4), 1.5–2 mm, often purple-tipped or-margined; pet to ca as long as the sep, or wanting; stamens as many as the sep, or to twice as many; fr 2–3 mm, ellipsoid, evidently surpassing the erect-appressed sep; seeds light brown, 0.25–0.3 mm, flattened, obliquely triangular, sulcate along the 2 dorsal angles, very minutely glandular-tuberculate or essentially smooth; 2n=36. Wet places or dry, sandy soil; Mass. to Ill., s. to Fla. and Tex. Mar.– May. The apetalous form has been called var. smithii (A. Gray) S. Watson. S. occidentalis S. Watson, of Wash., Oreg., and Calif. is scarcely different from S. decumbens.
Home
