Habit: Annual, from taproot.
Stem: prostrate, decumbent, or erect; base generally +- brown or +- purple; branches 0 or below middle.
Leaf: basal; petiole short or 0.
Inflorescence: +- raceme-like; bract 1 per flower, small; pedicel generally thread-like.
Flower: inverted or not; sepals linear to triangular; corolla +- radial or 2-lipped, lobes 5; filaments free at base, fused into tube around style distally, appendages attached to a stalk or directly on 2 adjacent filaments, each with 2--12 cells, anthers free, all alike; ovary superior to 1/2 inferior, hemispheric to obconic, nectary glands 3, mounded or donut-like, on free part of ovary, stigma 2-lobed, papillate.
Fruit: generally > hypanthium, hemispheric to fusiform, top pointed or rounded, chambers 2; open at top generally by 2 valves (or circumscissile).
Seed: elliptic to oblong.
Species In Genus: 18 species: southwestern United States, northwestern Mexico.
Etymology: (Greek: thread-like branch)
Note: In descriptions, "filaments" including both free and fused parts thereof.
Unabridged Note: Taxonomic changes from TJM (1993) based on ITS, atpB, morphology. Parishella californica nested within Nemacladus, in which it is here treated.Jepson eFlora Author: Nancy R. Morin
Reference: Morin 2008 J Bot Res Inst Texas 2:397--400
Unabridged Reference: McVaugh 1942 N Amer Flora 32A:1--134Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Nemacladus
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