Flora of North America species comparison

ascending or prostrate, much-branched from stout rootstock, 0.1–0.4 m.

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

petiole to 1/2 as long as blade;

blade linear to narrowly lanceolate, 1.5–8 × 0.2–0.5(–1) mm, base tapering, margins entire, plane to undulate, apex obtuse and often emarginate.

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, 0.7–1.2 mm, 1/2–2/3 as long as tepals.

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

terminal, compact pyramidal panicles and axillary glomerules, erect or reflexed, green, leafless at least distally.

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

intermixed with pistillate or at tips of inflorescences;

tepals 5;

stamens 5.

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 5, narrowly oblanceolate, not clawed, equal, 1.5–2 mm, apex obtuse or subacute;

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.

black, lenticular, 1–1.2 mm diam., semiglossy.

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

compressed, subglobose, 1.7–2 mm, ± equaling or slightly exceeding tepals, muricate, indehiscent.

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