Gratiola concinna

Detailed description

Procumbent, widely creeping much branched and intertangled perennial herb forming leafy mats; branches slender, rooting at nodes, filiform, usually ascending at apices, up to 200 mm long, 0.7–0.9 mm diameter, dark green, dark green purple-spotted or maroon-red, puberulent to ± glabrescent hairs at apices initially copious, sub-retrorse to patent, eglandular, 0.8–1.1 mm long, soon shedding leaving sparse to abundant subsessile to sessile, viscid, glandular admixed with sparse, longer eglandular hairs on older stems, internodes variable, usually 2.4–4.6 mm, sometimes very widely spaced, especially on longer stems. Leaves fleshy, nerves not evident, sessile, rarely shortly petiolate, petioles 0.8–1.2 mm, glabrous or puberulent, hairs as for stems; lamina 4.0–7.6 × 2.0–5.8 mm, oblong, obovate to suborbicular, apex obtuse, ± obtusely toothed rarely subentire or entire, yellow-green, dark green, usually with purple or maroon blotching or stitch marks near teeth, or rarely with upper lamina surface irregularly maroon spotted, puberulent, hairs mostly sessile to subsessile glandular, admixed with sparse to sometimes copious 0.6–1.0 mm, eglandular hairs. Flowers 10–12 mm long, solitary in bract axils, faintly sweet-scented. Pedicels 2.0–2.5 mm, distal end wider than proximal, puberulent, glabrate, hairs patent, eglandular. Bracteoles 1.2–2.1 × 0.5–1.1 mm, linear-oblong, oblong, apex obtuse to subacute, green with dark maroon apex, puberulent, hairs patent, 0.5–0.8 mm eglandular. Sepals 2–3, free, erect, 0.5–0.8 × 0.2–0.6 mm, narrowly-lanceolate to oblong, acute, green with dark maroon apex, puberulent, hairs patent, 0.3–0.6 mm eglandular. Corolla white, throat yellow or pale pinkish yellow; tube 7.6–8.2 mm long, funnelform, veins 10–16 pale pink or maroon, externally eglandular hairy along veins, hairs patent, 0.3–0.6 mm; inner surface densely covered in tangled, weakly flexuous, eglandular, yellow or pink, hairs 0.4–0.8 mm long; lobes 5, 3.2–4.0 × 4.0–4.6 mm, orbicular to broadly obovate, emarginate, widely spreading to decurved at anthesis, glabrous. Stamens 2, filaments 1.8–2.2 mm, white, anthers 0.4–0.6 mm, white, pollen white; staminodes 1–2, 1.6–1.8 mm, white. Ovary narrowly ellipsoid, 0.3–0.6 × 0.1–0.2 mm, style 1.8–2.0 mm, caducous, stigma rather broadly 3-lobed, perpendicular to style. Capsule ovoid 3.5–4.0 mm diameter, 4-valved, septicidial and loculicidial to base. Seed 0.4–0.7 mm, oblong, narrow-oblong, 2–4-angled, dark brown, surface glossy, deeply reticulate, mucilaginous when fresh.