Flora of North America species comparison

erect, simple or with lateral branches (especially distally), 0.2–1 m. Leaves: petiole 1/2–11/2 as long as blade;

blade rhombic-ovate or ovate, 1–7 × 0.5–5 cm, base rounded, cuneate, or attenuate, margins entire, plane, apex obtuse, rounded, or emarginate, mucronate.

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 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 ovate to lanceolate, 1 mm, shorter than tepals.

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

slender spikes aggregated into elongate terminal panicles, also from distal axils, green, leafless at least distally.

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

inconspicuous, mostly at tips of inflorescences;

tepals 3;

stamens 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 3, narrowly elliptic, obovate-elliptic or spatulate, not clawed, ± equal, 1.2–1.7 mm, apex rounded or nearly acute, mucronate or not;

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 or dark brown, subglobose to thick-lenticular, 1 mm diam., minutely punctulate, rather dull.

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

ovoid to compressed-ovoid, 1–1.6 mm, equaling or slightly exceeding tepals, prominently or faintly rugose, indehiscent.

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