Flora of North America species comparison

ascending or procumbent to erect, stramineous or whitish, simple or much branched at base, obtusely angled in age, mainly 0.5–4.5 dm, slender or stout, scurfy to glabrate.

many, subsessile or shortly petiolate;

blade elliptic to spatulate, oblanceolate, oblong, or obovate, 5–30(–35) × 2–8(–12) mm, base cuneate to attenuate, margin entire or irregularly dentate, densely scurfy abaxially, usually green and glabrate adaxially.

short petiolate to sessile;

blade ovate-deltate to elliptic or spatulate, (5–)10–27 mm, entire or subhastate.

with 3–5-parted perianth.

borne in small axillary glomerules.

intermixed with staminate in small axillary clusters.

borne solitary or few in bract axils on short, spinose, lateral branchlets of a paniculate inflorescence.

brown, 1–1.5 mm wide.

reddish brown, 2–2.8 mm.

bracteoles subsessile or short stipitate, orbiculate, strongly compressed, 2–4 mm and as wide, united except at thin margin, margin dentate, terminal teeth often prominent, faces smooth or with cristate appendages (thornberi phase).

bracteoles sessile or nearly so, body globose, connate, constricted below oblong to orbicular wings, 7–15 ×3.5–10 mm, entire or obscurely dentate, faces smooth to sparingly cristate.