Thesium fruticulosum (A.W.Hill) J.C.Manning & F.Forest

An erect or spreading perennial suffrutex, to about 30 cm tall, heath-like or growing beneath other shrubs, golden green in appearance, plant not brittle, woody taproot or slender rootstock, branched mainly from basal part, 5-15 branches, branching pattern fastigiate, leaves subtending each branchlet. Stems woody at base, herbaceous above, 2.0-3.5 mm in diameter, erect or suberect, glabrous to subglabrous, terete in transverse section. Leaves well developed, erect to adpressed to the stem, green basally but turning golden toward the attenuate tips, glabrous and glossy, without prominent venation or midrib, apex acute, margins entire, concavely recurved, rarely straight. Inflorescences arranged along the branch length, in branchlet axils, in spikes, attached to the stem by a short or no pedicel; bracts and bracteoles leaf-like; bracts fleshy, 2-6 x 1-2 mm, linear-lanceolate, margins conspicuously ciliated, membranous, golden green particularly toward the basal part, acute at tips, much longer than the flower, incurved; bracteoles bract-like but smaller, 2-4 x 0.7-2 mm. Flowers campanulate, golden green, 1-2.5 x 0.8-1.5 mm, 4-merous, external glands between perianth lobes absent; perianth lobe segments 0.5-1.2 x 0.5-0.8 mm, lobes ovate to triangular, obtuse or subacute at tips, neither distinctly uncinate nor lobulate; tube ca. 0.5 mm. Male and female plants well differentiated. Male plant: branches more slender than female counterparts, internodes 0.5-4 mm long; leaves dense, almost imbricate, more slender than female leaves, linear-lanceolate, 3-6 x 0.5-1.5 mm; inflorescences lax; hypanthium tube shallow; stamen tetramerous, staminal filaments exserted at the junction of hypanthium and perianth lobe tubes, about 0.3 mm long. Female plant: branches more robust, internodes as short as the male counterpart, 0.5-3.6 mm; leaves dense, imbricate, linear, 10-11 x 1-1.5 mm. Inflorescences lax; hypanthium tube length less than the perianth lobe tubes; style stout, about 0.3 mm long. Fruit a nutlet, ovoid, green, attached to the branch by white attenuated elaiosome,1.5-3 x 1-2.5 mm, with 10 conspicuous ribs, rarely 5, with prominent venation connecting the ridges particularly when dry, capped with green persistent perianth lobe segments, shorter relative to the fruit length.