This is a 8″ to 20″ tall, erect perennial, that rises on one or several stems from a branched, fleshy caudex atop a stout taproot. When young the plant forms a basal rosette of leaves. Later it sends up flowering stems.
The stems are lanky and covered with fine, downward-pointing hairs top to bottom. Near the top they are sticky due to stalked glands.
Leaves are mostly basal. The basal leaves are 1⅛″ to 4″ long including the leaf stalk, from less than ¼″ to ½″ wide, lance-shaped to elliptic or inversely lance-shaped with the attachment at the narrow end. They are covered with short, stiff hairs on the upper and lower surfaces. They are borne on leaf stalks. The margins are untoothed.
There are 2 to 5 pairs of opposite leaves in the stem. Stem leaves are narrower, opposite, and usually linear. They are 1⅛″ to 3½″ long and ¼″ or less wide. They are covered with short, stiff hairs on the upper and lower surfaces. The margins are untoothed.
The inflorescence is loose and narrow at the top of the stem, with 1 to 20, but usually 1 to 10, flowers.
The sepals are fused at the base into a tube (calyx) terminating in 5 short, erect lobes. The calyx is narrowly ellipse-shaped, not inflated, 2 to 3 times as long as broad, ⅜″ to ⅔″ long when in flower, ½″ to ¾″ long and ⅛″ to ⅓″ wide when in fruit. It has 10 green major veins that are raised on the surface (prominent), forming ridges. They are covered with sticky, glandular hairs.
The flowers have both male and female reproductive organs (perfect). The 5 petals are off-white to dusky pink, with a stalk-like narrow base (claw). They are as long as the calyx, and do not protrude from it, or are up to 1½ times as long as the calyx, and do protrude from it.
There are 10 stamens that do not project beyond the calyx. There are 5, sometimes 4, styles that also do not project beyond the calyx.
The fruit is a 3-chambered capsule the same size as the calyx the same size or, rarely, 1½ times as long as the calyx, with 5, sometimes 4, spreading teeth at the top. |
