Plants perennial, forming small to large mats or clumps, from slender rhizomes. Stems decumbent, freely branched, square, 2-20 cm, glabrous, rooting at proximal nodes. Leaves sessile; blade elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, 0.4-1.5 cm × 1-5 mm, succulent, base cuneate to rounded, margins entire, apex acute to obtuse, glabrous or with few cilia along margins. Inflorescences with flowers solitary in axils of foliage leaves; bracts absent. Pedicels ascending, straight or nearly so, usually 5-10(-30) mm, glabrous. Flowers ca. 10 mm diam.; sepals 5, prominently 1-3-veined, lanceolate, 4-5 mm, margins convex, narrow, scarious, apex acute, glabrous; petals 5, 4-6 mm, equaling sepals; stamens 10; styles 3, ascending and outwardly curved, 1-1.5 mm. Capsules straw colored, ovoid, 4-5 mm, equaling sepals, apex obtuse, opening by 6 valves; carpophore absent. Seeds pale brown, broadly and obliquely reniform, 0.8-1 mm diam., smooth to slightly rugose. 2n = 26.
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Much like no. 12 [Stellaria crassifolia Ehrh.]; more strongly fleshy; lvs averaging smaller and often relatively wider, mostly 3–10(–15) × 1.5–4(5) mm; sep at anthesis mostly (3)3.5–5 mm, at maturity equaling or a little longer than the fr; 2n=26. Salt marshes and other wet, subsaline habitats along or near the seacoast; circumboreal, s. in Amer. to Me. and Oreg. Summer. (Alsine h.)
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