Portulaca sedifolia

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Portulaca sedifolia

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Description

Annual subshrub or herb; stems prostrate or ascending, branched from base, 4-10 cm long, purplish or reddish, nodes with tufts of long, whitish hairs as long as or longer than the leaves. Leaves alternate, succulent; shortly petiolate; blade flat, elliptic-oblong, linear-oblong or linear-lanceolate, 3-6 x 1-1.5 mm, acute or obtuse, glabrous, purplish or reddish, often papillose or with a corrugated surface. Inflorescence a terminal, solitary flower or few-flowered cluster subtended by 5-6broadly ovate, ca. 1.5 mm long, concave involucral leaves. Sepals deltate or ovate-triangular, 1.5-3 mm long, obtuse, not keeled; petals white or whitish-rose, sometimes yellowish-white or pink; stamens 5-15; style 1 mm long, style-branches 2-5. Fruit ovoid, 2-3.5 mm, circumscissile below middle, operculum brownish-yellow, shining; seeds cochleate-orbicular, 0.5-0.65 mm, black, slate-grey or greyish-black, tuberculate.

Distribution

Guianas present, Southern America: Venezuela (Venezuela present), northern Brazil present
Northern Brazil, Venezuela, and the Guianas; 21 collections studied, all from the Guianas (GU: 5; SU: 1; FG: 15).

Notes

Individual plants sometimes have dimorphic leaves, with some of the upper branches bearing flat leaves and some of the lower branches having prominently ellipsoid-, ovoid-, or subgloboid-inflated, 2-2.5 mm long, leaves.