Flora of North America species comparison

fibrous.

prostrate to ascending.

basal and cauline, alternate or opposite, sessile or petiolate;

stipules absent;

blade reddish with age, flat or terete, margins often undulate.

terminal or axillary, flowers solitary or in cymes;

bracts absent or 1–2, sessile or pedicellate.

showy, 4–10[–20] mm diam., tubular;

calyx lobes (4–) 5, 2 often leaflike;

petals (including petaloid staminodia) 20–40[–150], distinct or connate into short tube, free, white, pink, or yellowish, linear;

nectary glands 5;

stamens 30[–120];

pistil (4–)5-carpellate;

ovary half-inferior, (4–)5-loculed, convex;

placentation axile;

stigmas (4–)5, erect, filiform.

capsules, persistent, valves (4–)5, with expanding interior keels when moistened, forming capsule lids when dried, dehiscence loculicidal.

100–200, black or dark [light] reddish brown [ochre or whitish], compressed [globose], often with 1 straight edge, 1 mm, smooth to rough with minute tubercles;

arils absent.