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Information Small woody, sericeous, aromatic shrub-lets (chamaephytes) 15-30 cm high, with a long thick woody taproot and gnarled basal stems covered with thick corky bark, producing an­nual shoots. Leaves subsessile, stipules reduced to 1-2 pairs of minute, subulate glands, lamina narrowly ovate, 2-5 cm long, 7-14 mm broad, apex acute to obtuse, base cuneate, margin serrate, with 1-2 pairs of sessile circular glands irregularly placed on lower surface near margin, densely pubescent with coarse simple hairs. Flowers axillary, solitary, opening in the morn­ing, fading at night, on short to long pedicels which become pendulous in fruit, with a pair of minute bracts. Sepals fused in lower third forming a cup, free above, narrowly ovate-acuminate, apiculate, c. 12 mm long, 3 mm broad, thin, dorsally somewhat hairy, 3-nerved, deciduous. Petals about as long as sepals, yellow, narrowly obovate, clawed, fused to the sepaloid cup below, alternating with the sepals and together producing a small erect, annular fringe at the mouth of the cup, deciduous. Stamens 5, free, hypogynous, filaments sub­ulate, glabrous, long or short, anthers versatile, introrse. Ovary

Information An undershrub 30–100 cm. high, or sometimes a perennial herb. Stems patently pilose, the hairs frequently short and somewhat rigid; old stems without leaves, often purplish, young ones usually densely foliate. Leaves 1–4·5 × 0·5–1·5 cm., elliptical to oblong or oblong-ovate to rarely obovate, obtuse or the narrowest ones acute at the apex, remotely serrate, frequently cuneate at the base, somewhat thick, subconcolorous, hispidulous or with subappressed hairs on both surfaces, with 1-3(4) suborbicular, submarginal impressed glands on each side near the base; lateral nerves obsolete above, slender and fairly prominent beneath, the midrib prominent on both surfaces; petiole 2–4 mm. or 0. Peduncle 4–20(25) mm. long, hispidulous; pedicel (1·25)5–10 mm. long, also hispidulous. Flowers usually heterostylous. Sepals 7–13 mm. long, lanceolate, acute or attenuate-cuspidate, hispidulous or with subappressed hairs, connate for 0·5–0·8 mm. at the base. Petals 6–12 × 2–6 mm., oblong-ovate, rounded at the top, cuneate at the base, golden-yellow. Longistylous flowers: filaments 3–4(4·5) mm. long; anthers 1–1·5 mm. long, oblong; styles (3·5)4–5·5(6) mm. long. Brevistylous flowers: filaments (6)6·5–8 mm. long; anthers 0·75–1·5 mm. long; styles 2 mm. long. Capsule 4–7 mm. long, ovoid, hairy, brownish-green. Seeds 3–3·5 mm. long, obovoid-oblong, slightly curved, roundish at the top, reticulate-alveolate; aril whitish, equalling c. 2/3 of the seed, subentire or crenulate.