Small, spreading rhizomatous perennials often with light to dark vinaceous colouring at base, saxicolous, forming colonies; roots thin, branched. Sterile shoots perennial, with limited growth, forming a basal cluster of c. 7 subdecussate to rosulate leaves; lamina sheathing basally, broadly linear, c. 150 x 12 mm, upper smaller (immature), lanate with long, white, appressed hairs, rarely glabrous; further apical growth suppressed towards time of flowering. Fertile shoots, annual, arisÂing below basal leaf-cluster, forming long, deÂcumbent, spreading stems with the narrowly ovate, leaf-like spathes diminishing in size toÂwards apex, and enclosing compact, few-many-flowered sessile cymes in their axils; lower nodes producing 1-2 short adventitious side branches which pierce lower empty spathes on adaxial side; roots, if developed, similarly adventitious. After flowering (usually) new decumbent shoots sprout from adventitious buds below leaf-cluster; these give rise to new clusters, the plants thus in time forming large colonies. Flowers typical; corolla c. 10 mm long, purple, mauve or pink. Stamens with filaments fusiform towards apex, where they are densely covered with beaded hairs, darker in colour than petals. Capsule with seeds typical, 1,5 mm long. Fig. 13.
