OregonFlora species comparison

erect, occasionally prostrate; simple to branching, green, becoming red with age; fleshy, jointed.

opposite, reduced to fleshy scales, fused at bases and enclosing stems;

margins entire and somewhat scarious, sessile.

spikes; terminal at tips of stems, appearing jointed, forming fleshy segments, weakly torulose; each fertile segment consisting of opposite, 3-flowered clusters; sunken in depressions of rachis, adherent to internode; each separated by a flap of internodal tissue;

bracts enclosing bases of cymes.

bisexual, radially symmetric;

perianth segments 3, persistent in fruit, mostly connate; fleshy;

stamens (0)1–2;

styles 2.

utricles;

pericarp membranous.

vertical, ellipsoid, yellow-brown; hairy; perisperm absent.