Sesuvium portulacastrum
Content
Description
Perennial herb, glabrous; stem much branched, terete, trailing up to 2 m (often less), often rooting at nodes. Petiole 1-12 mm long; blade often seemingly with salt-exuding hydathode glands above, oblong, elliptical, narrowly oblanceolate, linear-oblong or linear, 1-5(-7) x 0.2-2.5 cm, apex obtuse to acute, base clasping and often overlapping; venation indistinct. Flowers solitary, on a glabrous pedicel to 2 cm long; perianth-tube obconic to subcampanulate, 1.5-3 mm long, lobes lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate or ovate, 4-10 x 2-6 mm, thickened, outside usually prominently veined and green, appendage 1-2 mm long, inside pink, lilac or pinkish-purple, margin scarious pink or hyaline; stamens numerous (ca. 25), unequal, included, inserted at orifice of perianth-tube, filaments 1.5-5 mm long, free above, connate below in a skirt-like tube, anthers reddish, oblong, 0.5-1 x 0.25-0.5 mm; ovary ovoid to subglobose, 3-4 x 2.5-3(-4) mm, styles 3-4, linear, free except at very base. Capsule ovoid, obovoid or conical, 6-11 x 3-6 mm, circumscissile below middle; seeds 8-30, lenticular-reniform or orbicular, black, smooth, shiny, ca. 1-1.5 mm wide, aril membranous, transparent.