Flora of North America species comparison

rhizomatous, procumbent or creeping, much-branched, bearing terminal rosettes.

erect, ascending, procumbent, or creeping, usually much-branched, sometimes succulent, usually hardly secondarily thickened, base sometimes slightly woody.

erect, simple, 3–14 cm;

leaf blades spatulate-oblong or elliptic-oblong, base not spurred;

offsets not formed.

alternate, spreading, petiolate;

blade green, often glaucous or pruinose, spatulate, terete to laminar, 7–19 × 4.5–10 mm, base not spurred, not scarious, apex rounded or truncate, submucronate, (surfaces papillose marginally).

deciduous or persistent, rarely rosulate, sometimes forming dense rosettes, usually alternate, sometimes opposite or in whorls of 3–5[–6], ± alike, petiolate or sessile, not connate basally;

blade linear to orbiculate or spatulate, terete, semiterete, or subterete, rarely laminar, 0.1–8 cm, usually ± succulent, base spurred or not, margins entire, (with 1 abaxial apical hydathode);

veins not conspicuous.

cymes, ca. 30-flowered, ca. 3-branched;

branches not recurved, forked;

bracts oblong-spatulate or linear, ca. 3 cm, base not spurred.

terminal or axillary cymes (sometimes compound, cincinnate, less often simple).

2–8 mm.

present or absent.

5-merous;

sepals spreading to erect, connate basally, green or yellow-green, glaucous or pruinose, lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, oblong-ovate, or obovate, equal, ca. 2.5 × 1.5 mm, apex acute or obtuse;

petals widely spreading from short, erect base, distinct or slightly connate basally, yellow, linear to oblanceolate, not carinate, 4.5–9 mm, apex acute;

filaments yellow;

anthers yellow;

nectar scales yellow, reniform or nearly square.

erect, (3–)5–8[–12]-merous;

sepals distinct and spurred or slightly connate basally, (green), equal or strongly unequal;

petals spreading or erect at anthesis, usually distinct or slightly connate basally, [connate for 1/3–2/3 their lengths], yellow, white, pink, purple, or reddish, sometimes red-lineolate (often with reddish keel and adaxial subapical appendage), margins entire;

calyx and corolla not circumscissile;

nectaries oblong, square, transversely oblong, reniform, or spatulate;

stamens 2 times as many as sepals, rarely as many as sepals;

filaments of epipetalous stamens usually adnate basally, filaments of antipetalous stamens usually distinct, rarely connate basally;

pistils erect, slightly connate basally to almost distinct, (usually sessile with broad base);

styles equaling or shorter than ovary.

erect or spreading.

divergent in fruit, connate basally, brown.

ovoid to ellipsoid, (usually ca. 1 mm), reticulate or reticulate-papillose.

= 30.

= 4–ca. 640.