Flora of North America species comparison

ascending or prostrate, profusely branched basally, radiating from rootstock, mostly 0.2–0.5 m.

erect or ascending (sometimes prostrate), stramineous or suffused with red, branched at base, sparsely branched to simple distally, 15–30(–60) cm.

petiole 1/2 as long as to equaling blade;

blade rhombic-ovate or ovate to lanceolate, 1–2 × 0.5–1 cm, base tapering or cuneate, margins entire, plane or slightly undulate, apex subacute, obtuse, or retuse or shallowly emarginate, mucronulate.

petiole 1/2 as long as to equaling blade;

blade ovate or rhombic-ovate, 1–2.7 × 0.5–1.5 cm, base cuneate to broadly cuneate, margins entire, plane or slightly undulate (rarely erose), apex obtuse, rounded, or broadly cuneate, with mucro.

of pistillate flowers linear, 0.5–1 mm, 1/2 as long as tepals.

lanceolate-ovate to lanceolate, shorter than tepals, apex acute.

terminal, erect, compact, pyramidal panicles and also some axillary clusters, green or silvery green, occasionally tinged with red, leafless at least distally.

axial glomerules from base of plant to tip, interrupted at nodes or crowded in terminal, leafy spikes.

clustered at tips of inflorescences;

tepals 2–3;

stamens 2–3.

basal and scattered on lateral shoots;

tepals 4–5, oblong-ovate, equal, 1.2–1.6 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

stamens 3(–4).

tepals 2–3, narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate, not clawed, equal or subequal, 1.2–2 mm, apex broadly acute;

style branches erect;

stigmas 3.

tepals 5, not imbricate, distal parts expanded, oblong-spatulate, subequal, 1.1–1.6(–2.1) mm, scarious, margins entire, apex obtuse or rounded, with excurrent midrib;

style branches erect;

stigmas 3.

very dark brown to black, 1–1.2 mm diam., shiny, filling only proximal portion of fruit.

black to reddish brown, lenticular to subglobose, 1–1.2 mm, smooth, shiny.

marked with 2(–3) green lines that intersect at apex and divide fruit into halves or quarters, slightly to distinctly inflated, ellipsoid, 2–3 mm, distinctly longer than tepals, smooth (in dry plants wrinkled or rugose), indehiscent.

brownish at maturity, obovoid to obpyramidal, slightly biconvex, 1.5–1.7 mm, longer than tepals, rugose to tuberculate, dehiscence regularly circumscissile.