3 ft. high, densely much branched; branchlets very numerous, long and very slender, straight or slightly curved, subparallel, very minutely puberulous or almost glabrous; leaves 3-nate, usually shorter than the internodes, erect and adpressed or sometimes imbricate, 2/3–1 1/3 lin. long, narrowly linear, acute, straight or very slightly spreading at the tips, which are sometimes paler in colour, as if slightly indurated, glabrous; flowers 1–3 together, axillary or on exceedingly short axillary branchlets and terminal, subsessile; bracts 0, except the floral leaves; calyx 1/2– 2/3 lin. long, obconic, 4-angled, unequally 4-toothed, glabrous; teeth erect, broadly ovate, acute, keeled, very minutely subciliate, one of them much larger than the rest, the smaller more than half as long as the tube; corolla obconic, glabrous; lobes broader than long, rounded, abruptly inflexed over the margin of the stigma, rigid; stamens 8, included; filaments connate into a tube at the base, free above; anthers connate, acutely bifid and minutely ciliate at the apex; ovary at first small, shortly obconic, 8-ribbed, truncately contracted into a stout style longer than itself, glabrous, becoming much enlarged and rhomboid-obovate, from the style increasing and forming a broadly conical hollow top to the obconic lower part; stigma large, peltate with upturned margins, slightly 4-angled, becoming convex and smooth at the central part, with a narrow incurved rim, and, upon the enlargement of the ovary, appearing to be subsessile; fruit ellipsoid, with a rather thin scarcely crustaceous pericarp. null
