Flora of North America species comparison

obtusely angled, finely scurfy when young.

erect or forming sprawling tangled clumps and mostly green;

branches erect-ascending, proximal ones opposite and ascending, sparsely scurfy when young, obtusely angled.

sessile or short petiolate;

blade paler abaxially, oblong or rhombic-ovate to broadly obovate or narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic, 10–30 × (1–)3–15 mm, thin, base rounded to cuneate, margin repand-dentate or sinuate-dentate to undulate or distal ones or all of them entire, apex rounded to acute, mucronate, densely white scurfy abaxially, grayish green and usually glabrate adaxially.

alternate or only proximalmost opposite, all shortly petiolate;

blade green on both surfaces, linear, linear-oblong, linear-lanceolate, or oblong, (10–)25–80(–120) × 2–8(–12) mm, thin, gradually narrowed, margin mostly entire or some sinuate-dentate with antrorse teeth, apex obtuse to acuminate.

of long, dense or interrupted hairy spikes often forming panicle to 20 cm;

staminate flowers 4–5-merous.

in short, dense, naked terminal spikes or panicles;

calyx 5-cleft, lobes green keeled.

fascicled in axils.

brown, 1–1.5 mm.

dimorphic: brown, 2–2.8 mm wide, round and ± flattened, or black, 1.5–2 mm wide, round, evenly convex;

radicle inferior.

bracteoles sessile or with stipes to 0.5 mm, broadly cuneate-orbiculate, compressed, (2–) 2.5–4.5 × (1.5–)2.6–5 mm, usually as broad as or broader than long, much thickened at maturity, united only at truncate or broadly cuneate base, margin deeply and acutely dentate, faces with 2, sometimes swollen, dentate crests or covered with irregular, conic-acute, corky tubercles, seldom smooth.

bracteoles sessile, triangular to ovate or ovate-rhombic, (3–)5–7 mm, mostly denticulate, rarely subentire, faces tuberculate almost distinct, green becoming brown or black.

= 18.