Plants perennial, rhizomatous; rhizome elongate. Stems erect, simple to sparingly branched, leafy, 20-70 cm, glabrous to puberulent, especially distally. Leaves 2 per node, sessile or short-petiolate, largest near mid-stem region, reduced and withering proximally, blade elliptic-lanceolate, base cuneate or rounded, apex gradually acuminate and acute, glabrous to puberulent. Inflorescences cymose, (1-)3-5(-12)-flowered, open, leafy. Pedicels 2-2 2 times calyx, apex often becoming deflexed, glabrous to hirsute. Flowers: calyx green, obscurely 10-veined, broadly tubular to campanulate, ± constricted at base around carpophore with broad umbilicate base, becoming broadly clavate in fruit, 14-17 × 5-9 mm, herbaceous, glabrous or hirsute, veins green, without pale commissures, lobes triangular, 2-3 mm; corolla white, clawed, claw equaling calyx, expanded distally into 2-lobed limb, limb oblong, 6-7 mm, appendages oblong, 1-1.6 mm, margins ± entire; stamens short-exserted; stigmas 3, short-exserted. Capsules globose, equaling calyx, opening by 3 broad teeth that sometimes split to form 6; carpophore 5-6 mm. Seeds dark brown to black, with grayish bloom, broadly reniform, not winged, 0.7-1 mm, sides with concentric crescents of low tubercles, larger and deeper on outer margins. 2n = 48.
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