Epilobium gracilipes

Detailed description

Dark reddish-tinged, decumbent perennial herb bearing numerous leafy stems and forming clumped, matted patches up to 200 mm diameter. Plants with lines of erect or appressed non-glandular hairs decurrent from the margins of the petioles. Leaves mostly opposite, alternate in the inflorescence, thick, fleshy lustrous, dark green tinged red or bright red above, usually bright red below, lateral veins not prominent, 2–3 on each side of midrib; petioles 1.2 mm long; lamina 5–18 × 3–10 mm (often equal in length to the internodes they subtend), narrowly ovate or ovate, apex rounded, obtuse to aubacute, base truncate, margins revolute, coarsely, remotely serrulate, teeth absent or up to 4 either side. Inflorescences 1–3–(8)-flowered, glabrous, borne in the axils of the upper leaves, nodding; flowers nodding, ovaries erect. Ovaries 8–18 mm long, on glabrous pedicels 10–34 mm long. Floral tube 0.5–1.5 × 0.9–1.4 mm, glabrous. Sepals keeled, 3.6–4.6 × 0.8–1.1 mm, glabrous. Petals 3.5–6.4 × 2.5–4.5 mm, white (sometimes flushed pink), the notch 0.7–1.8 mm deep. Anthers 0.6–0.8 × 0.35–0.45 mm, yellow; filaments white, those of the longer stamens 1.5–3.5 mm long, those of the shorter 1.0–1.5 mm long, the anthers of both pairs or the longer ones only shedding pollen directly onto stigma after the flower opens. Style 2.2–3.6 mm long, white; stigma 1.0–1.5 × 0.7–0.8 mm, white, clavate. Capsule 28–50 mm long, on pedicels 17–60 mm long. Seeds 1.1–1.5 mm long, brown to grey-brown or orange-brown, oblong-obovate to obovate, finely reticulate-mamillate; coma 3.0–7.0 mm long, white, persistent or caducous.