Plants perennial; taproot slender; caudex with much-branched crown, finely pubescent throughout with mainly glandular hairs. Stems numerous, decumbent to ascending, branched, tufted, leafy, slender, 5-30 cm. Leaves 2 per node, sessile or nearly so, blade reticulate-veined, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, thin, 0.8-2 cm × 3-8 mm, broadest proximally, base rounded, apex acute. Inflorescences cymose, open, compound, leafy, single flowers borne terminally and in axils of distal leaves; bracteoles, when present, 2. Pedicels straight, slender, 1/2-3 times longer than calyx. Flowers: calyx green, obscurely 10-veined, narrowly campanulate, in fruit 6-9 × 3-4 mm, herbaceous, pubescent, veins without conspicuous pale commissures; lobes triangular, 2-3 mm; corolla dark red, sometimes white, clawed, claw slightly longer than calyx, limb deeply 2-lobed, 2-3 mm, appendages 2, very small; stamens exserted; styles 3, exserted. Capsules ellipsoid, included in calyx, opening by 6 teeth; carpophore ca. 1.5 mm. Seeds brown, not winged, broadly reniform, flattened, ca. 0.8 mm, reticulate. 2n = 24.
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