Flora of North America species comparison

trailing to ascending, branched, 4-angled, 10–60 cm, glabrous.

erect, branched, 4-angled, 3–20 cm, glabrous.

subsessile;

blade broadly elliptic to ovate, 0.4–2.6 cm × 2–15 mm, base round to cuneate, margins entire, apex acuminate, glabrous or with a few scattered cilia.

sessile;

blade ovate to broadly lanceolate, widest below middle, 0.4–2 cm × 2–6 mm, coriaceous, base round, margins entire, apex acuminate, spinous, glabrous.

with flowers solitary in leaf axils;

bracts absent.

with flowers solitary, subterminal in axils of foliage leaves, or terminal, 2–5-flowered cymes;

bracts (when present) lanceolate, distally reduced, 3–14 mm, herbaceous, margins scarious, apex acuminate.

ascending, straight, mostly 5–30 mm, glabrous.

stiffly erect, 5–40 mm, glabrous.

4–5 mm;

sepals 5, prominently 3-veined, lanceolate, 2–4 mm, margins broadly scarious, apex acute to acuminate, glabrous;

petals usually absent, rarely 1–5 and much shorter than sepals;

stamens 10 or fewer;

styles 3, spreading to ascending, curved but not curled, ca. 1 mm.

10–13 mm diam.;

sepals 5, 3-veined, lanceolate, 4.5–6 mm, margins narrow, scarious, apex acute, glabrous or sparsely pilose;

petals 5, 5–7 mm, 1–1.5 times as long as sepals, blade apex with lobes oblanceolate;

stamens 10, in 2 whorls;

styles 3(–4), ascending and outwardly curved, 2 mm.

straw colored or brownish, ovoid to ovoid-ellipsoid, 3.5–6 mm, equaling or slightly exceeding sepals, apex broadly acute, opening by 6 valves;

carpophore absent.

olive green, ovoid, 4–6 mm, equaling and enclosed in sepals, opening by 6(–8) valves;

carpophore absent.

brown, broadly elliptic, 0.7–1 mm (longest axis), distinctly rugose.

brown, reniform-rotund, 0.8–1.2 mm, rugose.

= 26, 52.