Flora of North America species comparison

erect, simple to sparingly branched, leafy, 20–70 cm, glabrous to puberulent, especially distally.

erect, leafy proximally, 3–6(–15) cm, old leaves persistent at base.

mostly basal, densely crowded and imbricate, sessile;

blade 1(–3)-veined, linear-subulate to lanceolate, 0.4–1(–1.5) cm × 0.8–1.5(–2) mm, margins cartilaginous, often ciliolate especially proximally, apex acute, glabrous to scabrous.

2 per node, sessile or short-petiolate, largest near mid-stem region, reduced and withering proximally, blade elliptic-lanceolate, base cuneate or rounded, apex gradually acuminate and acute, glabrous to puberulent.

solitary flowers.

cymose, (1–)3–5(–12)-flowered, open, leafy.

2–40 mm.

1/2–21/2 times calyx, apex often becoming deflexed, glabrous to hirsute.

bisexual or unisexual, all plants having both staminate and pistillate flowers, others having only pistillate flowers, subsessile or borne singly on peduncle;

calyx 10-veined, lateral veins absent, tubular to campanulate, (5–)7–10 mm, herbaceous, margins often purple tinged, dentate, sometimes ciliate, ± scarious, glabrous, lobes lanceolate to ovate, 1–2 mm;

petals bright pink, rarely white, limb unlobed to shallowly 2-fid, 2.5–3.5 mm, base tapered into claw, auricles and appendages poorly developed;

stamens exserted in staminate flowers, not so or aborted in pistillate flowers;

styles 3.

calyx green, obscurely 10-veined, broadly tubular to campanulate, ± constricted at base around carpophore with broad umbilicate base, becoming broadly clavate in fruit, 14–17 × 5–9 mm, herbaceous, glabrous or hirsute, veins green, without pale commissures, lobes triangular, 2–3 mm;

corolla white, clawed, claw equaling calyx, expanded distally into 2-lobed limb, limb oblong, 6–7 mm, appendages oblong, 1–1.6 mm, margins ± entire;

stamens short-exserted;

stigmas 3, short-exserted.

3-locular, cylindric, equaling or to 2 times calyx, opening by 6 recurved teeth;

carpophore ca. 1 mm.

globose, equaling calyx, opening by 3 broad teeth that sometimes split to form 6;

carpophore 5–6 mm.

light brown, reniform, 0.8–1(–1.2) mm broad, dull, shallowly rugose.

dark brown to black, with grayish bloom, broadly reniform, not winged, 0.7–1 mm, sides with concentric crescents of low tubercles, larger and deeper on outer margins.

= 24.

= 48.