Selago eckloniana Choisy

Dwarf woody shrublet c. 300-750 mm tall, virgately branched, old stems nude, thickest seen 10 mm in diam., young branches puberulous, hairs c. 0.1 mm long, patent or recurved, sometimes arranged in longitudinal bands, often varnished by discharge from almost invisible globular glands, leafy. Leaves opposite, alternate upwards, not fascicled, largest ones 6-20 x 0.7-1.2 mm, ranging from suberect with tips recurved or not to spreading and then sometimes arcuate, linear or narrowly elliptic, apex acute, apiculate, base narrowed, margins entire, texture moderately thick (elliptic in T. S., very roughly one third to one half as broad as long), upper surface longitudinally channelled, lower plane to rounded, midrib sometimes slighdy raised near base, glandular-punctate, sometimes varnished, minute hairs only on margins of decurrent leaf bases. Inflorescence a terminal raceme c. 40-100 x 13-18 mm, flowers often crowded, sometimes ± distant or becoming so in fruit, either solitary or with a few subsidiary racemes loosely panicled. Bract adnate to pedicel and extreme base of calyx tube, lowermost sometimes leaflike, mostly c. 4.2-7 x 0.8-1.3 mm, lanceolate, very acute to acuminate, base contracted to embrace pedicel, coarse hairs c. 0.3-0.8 mm long on margins only, or sometimes upper bracts in particular with few to many similar hairs on back, very minute globular glands all over back, sometimes varnished. Pedicel c. 0.1-0.8 mm long. Calyx 2-3 mm long, campanulate, subequally 5-lobed up to halfway to base, lobes strongly keeled, coarse patent hairs c. 0.4-0.8 mm long on margins and all over outside together with plentiful globular glands, sometimes varnished, globular glands also all over inside of calyx, sometimes sticking calyx to corolla tube. Corolla tube 4.2-5.5 mm long, funnel-shaped, limb 4.5-6 mm across lateral lobes, posticous lobes 1.5-2 x 1-1.4 mm, anticous lobe 2-2.8 x 1.2-1.5 mm all lobes oblong-elliptic or elliptic, white (see discussion). Stamens: posticous filaments 1.4-2.7 mm long, anticous filaments 2-3.2 mm, all anthers exerted, sometimes strongly so. Stigma and style 4.5-7 mm long, style very minutely glandular, sometimes acute hairs as well. Ovary c. 0.8 x 0.4 mm, either glabrous or few very minute glandular hairs at apex. Coca 2-2.5 x 1-1.3 mm, red-brown, smooth, glabrous, inner face plane, the pair of cocci held firmly within the persistent calyx, sometimes glued to it by oozing glands. Flowering between May and October, chiefly July to October.