Selago aspera Choisy

Dwarf woody shrublet or perennial herb 155-600 mm tall, stoutest stem seen 6 mm in diam., main stems decumbent to erect, loosely and virgately branched, old stems rough with persistent leaf bases, branches pubescent, hairs up to 0.1-0.15 mm long, ± retrorse, closely leafy. Leaves opposite soon alternate upwards, not fascicled, but very small leaves (incipient branches?) sometimes present in axils, mostly sharply ascending and often appressed, sometimes spreading on older parts of branches, largest ones 3-10(-17) x 0.8-2 mm, elliptic, apex obtuse, base slightly narrowed, ± decurrent, margins entire, plane, texture rather thin, midrib usually raised on lower surface, glandular-punctate, sometimes varnished. Inflorescence a crowded raceme, lowermost flowers a little distant in fruit, c. 20-70 x 10-15 mm in fruit, each terminating a long leafy branch, solitary or eventually overtopped by a few subsidiary racemes (old bare inflorescence axes long persistent). Bract adnate to pedicel and sometimes extreme base of calyx tube, lowermost (3.5-)5-8.5 x 0.7-1.2 mm, lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, subacute, glandular-punctate, sometimes varnished, hairs up to 0.4-0.8 mm long at least on lower margins and back, slightly crisped, sometimes mixed with glandular hairs to c. 0.2 mm, minutely glandular as well on both faces. Pedicel up to c. 0.3 mm long. Calyx 2.2-3 mm long, campanulate, subequally 5-lobed halfway or more to base, lobes triangular, acute, hairs up to 0.25-0.6 mm long on margins and outside, often slightly crisped, glandular hairs as well, up to 0.1-0.15(-0.2) mm long, inside sometimes glabrous, often with minute glandular and/or acute hairs scattered all over or confined to lobes. Corolla tube (4.3-)5-6.3 mm long, funnel-shaped, limb 3.5-6 mm across lateral lobes, posticous lobes 1.5-2.1 x 0.8-1.2 mm, anticous lobes 2-3 x 1-1.3 mm, all lobes elliptic-oblong, white. Stamens: posticous filaments 1.5-3 mm long, anthers exerted; anticous filaments 2-3 mm long, anthers well exerted, or sometimes all anthers well exerted. Stigma and style c. 4-7.5 mm long, style often clad in delicate acute hairs, sometimes glabrous. Ovary c. 0.8 x 0.4 mm. Cocci 1.8-2.5 x 0.8-1.2 mm, red-brown, smooth, inner face plane, pair of cocci held within persistent calyx. Flowers can be found in all months, but principally between September and November.