Lobelia fugax

Detailed description

Diminutive, creeping, prostrate, glabrous herb; rooting at leaf nodes. Leaves alternate, upright to spreading; lamina 3.0–6.0 × 3.0–4.0 mm, obovate, oblong, broadly elliptic, green, sometimes blotched purple-brown near base and on main veins, midvein faint, lateral veins faint to obscure, margin with 5–7 prominent teeth or serrations; petiole 0.5–2.0 × 0.6–0.9 mm. Flowers hermaphrodite, resupinate, axillary, solitary; peduncle 0.5–5.7 mm long. Calyx with short tube adnate to ovary; lobes 5, 0.6–1.3 × 0.3–0.4 mm, green, narrowly triangular to lanceolate; apex subacute and with conspicuous translucent tip. Corolla up to 3.5 mm long in late bud, 1.2–2.5 mm diameter when open, white; tube 1.5–2.2 × c.0.8 mm, fused; lobes 4–5, 0.9–1.3 × 0.5–0.7 mm, narrow lanceolate, recurved, apex subacute, front 2–3 lobes flushed green near sinus. Filaments 2.0–2.2 × 0.1–0.2 mm, fused below anthers, adnate to corolla tube on lower third, white in distal part, becoming translucent and flushed green toward proximal part. Anthers 0.4–0.5 mm long, united into a tube around style, yellow-brown to light brown. Nectary annular, c. 0.15 mm high, green; apex sparsely hairy, hairs < 0.1 mm long. Ovary 1.2–2.0 × 0.8–1.2 mm, green, apex obtuse. Style 2.0–2.4 × 0.2–0.3 mm wide, white, exserted beyond anthers. Stigma bilobed, lobes 0.2–0.4 × 0.2–0.4 mm, pink, subtended by whorl of hairs, hairs < 0.1 mm long. Capsule 2.3–2.9 × 1.6–2.2 mm, laterally compressed; thin-walled, seeds visible through wall, indehiscent and without apical valves, disintegrating with age; apex crowned with persistent style base; base obtuse to slightly cuneate. Seed buff-brown, obovate-oblong to broadly elliptic, 0.4–0.5 mm long.