Flora of North America species comparison

erect, dichotomously branched, 3–40 cm, ultimate branches filiform, glabrous.

erect, 6–10 cm, evenly puberulent with spreading hairs.

stipules subulate to lanceolate, 0.5–4 mm, apex acuminate, entire;

blade usually dotted or blotched, elliptic to obovate, 3–30 × 1–11 mm, herbaceous, apex acute to obtuse or cuspidate, glabrous.

stipules lanceolate, 4–7 mm, apex acuminate, entire;

blade linear or needlelike, 4–7 × ca. 0.5 mm, leathery, apex spinulose, puberulous.

5-merous, ± short-cylindric, with enlarged hypanthium and calyx cylindric, 0.9–1.3 mm, glabrous;

sepals greenish to brownish, midrib and lateral pair of veins prominent, ovate to oblong, 0.5–1 mm, herbaceous, margins white to translucent, 0.03–0.1 mm wide, scarious, apex terminated by mucro, hood rounded-triangular, mucro triangular, 0.07–0.15 mm, glabrous;

staminodes absent or indistinct;

styles 2, 0.2–0.3 mm.

5-merous, extended-urecolate, with prominent hypanthial bulge and calyx tapering somewhat distally, 2.8–3.1 mm, moderately pubescent with straight, spreading to appressed hairs generally throughout;

sepals green to red-brown, veins absent or midrib and lateral pair of veins evident in fruit, lanceolate to oblong, 1.3–1.5 mm, leathery to rigid, margins translucent, less than 0.05 mm wide, scarious, apex terminated by awn, hood prominent, narrowly rounded, awn widely divergent, 0.5–0.7 mm, broadly conic in proximal 1/2–2/3 with yellowish, ± glabrous spine;

staminodes subulate, ca. 0.5 mm;

style 1, 2-lobed in distal 1/3–3/5, 0.5–0.7 mm.

diffuse, flowers solitary (paired) in axils of leafy bracts.

terminal, 7–28+-flowered, branched, mostly congested in clusters 5–15 mm wide.

ovoid to globose, ca. 0.5 mm, granular in distal 1/2, glabrous.

± ovoid, 0.8–0.9 mm, ± smooth, glabrous.