Plants perennial; taproot slender; caudex branched, woody, producing subterranean creeping stems and clumps of flowering and vegetative shoots. Stems erect to straggling, branched or simple, leafy, 7-35 cm, retrorse-puberulent. Leaves 2 per node, sessile, blade 1-veined, linear, lanceolate, or narrowly oblong, tapered to base, apex acute, puberulent on both surfaces. Inflorescences cymose, compound, ca. (2-)5-20-flowered, usually compact, bracteate; bracts narrowly lanceolate, 2-15 mm. Pedicels ascending, 0.1-1(-2) cm, shorter or longer than calyx, eglandular or with scattered glands, pubescence white, dense, short. Flowers: calyx obscurely 10-veined, tubular-campanulate, 10-15 × 3-5 mm in flower, becoming clavate and 5-6 mm broad in fruit, herbaceous, villous, veins purple tinged or entirely purple, without conspicuous pale commissures, lobes ovate, 1-2.5 mm, margins broad, scarious, apex obtuse; corolla rose pink, rarely white, clawed, claw equaling calyx, broadened distally, limb obconic, 2-lobed, 3-7 mm, appendages 0.7-1.2 mm; stamens equaling calyx; styles 3(-4), exserted. Capsules ovoid, equaling calyx, opening by 6 (or 8) spreading teeth; carpophore 4-7 mm. Seeds grayish brown, not winged, reniform, 0.8-1 mm, rugose on sides, margins shortly papillate. 2n = 24, 48.
More
Herbs perennial, 15--50 cm tall, shortly pubescent or glabrous throughout. Rhizome slender, branched. Stems solitary or sparsely caespitose, ascending, basally usually lignified, simple or sometimes branched. Leaves with short, sterile axillary branches, linear-lanceolate, lanceolate, oblanceolate, or orbicular-lanceolate, (1.5--)2--7 cm × (1--)3--10(--12) mm, sparsely pubescent, ciliate at margin, midvein prominent, base cuneate. Flowers in a racemiform thyrse; cymules usually 3--7-flowered, usually opposite, distal cymules often capitate. Pedicel 1--8 mm; bracts lanceolate. Calyx often violet-tinged, tubular to clavate, 1--1.5 cm × 3--4.5 mm, pubescent. Androgynophore 4--6(--8) mm, shortly pubescent. Petal claws oblanceolate, without auricles; limbs not exserted beyond calyx, white, rarely yellowish white, obovate, usually 5--7 mm, bifid to middle or less. Stamens and styles slightly exserted; filaments glabrous. Styles 3. Capsule ovoid, 6--8 mm, shorter than calyx. Seeds black-brown, reniform, ca. 1 mm. Fl. Jun--Aug, fr. Jul--Sep. 2n = 24, 48.
Home
