A procumbent herb with branching and elongating stems rooting at many of the lower nodes, internodes 1–3 cm. long, rather densely hirsute with the hairs all round the stem.. Leaves nearly sessile or narrowed at the base, often rather suddenly, to a flattened petiole 1–2 mm. long; blades elliptic or obovate-elliptic, mucronulate, 1–1.5 cm. long, setulose-ciliate at the margins, with scattered bristles especially on the midrib on the abaxial surface, usually glabrous on the adaxial surface.. Pedicels 2–3 mm. long in Uganda material.. Flowers 4–5 mm. long.. Stamens 7–8 in Uganda material.. Styles 5.. Seeds 7 (9).. The determination of the one collection (A. S. Thomas 305) available from the area of the present Flora as U. abyssinica is made with some hesitation. The internodes are somewhat more densely hirsute than are those of the type (Schimper 302), the stems are procumbent or scrambling and apparently not or scarcely ascending in the upper part, and the stamens (in the three flowers dissected) are 7 to 8 (not 10). Plants grown at Kew from Ethiopian seed (H. Scott 268), however, morphologically link up the Uganda material with Schimpers type. It is also clear from the results of dissecting many flowers that, in some at least of the species of this genus, the number of stamens is not always a constant character.
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