L., Syst. Nat. ed.10,1154.1759
Annual herb, to 50 cm tall, usually branched manytimes; stems densely and minutely stalked-glandular. Leavesshort-petiolate; blades mostly linear-lanceolate, acute, to 3.2 cmlong and 3.5 mm wide; vein 1. Racemes long, slender, terminal orupper-axillary, 3-7 mm long; flowers red-violet, pedicellate, 2-2.5mm long; sepals 5, the outer 3 minute, green or tinged with whiteor red-violet, the inner 2 equaling petals, red-violet, oblong,rounded at apex; petals 3, the upper 2 white, ± connatelaterally and enfolding the lower petal, the lower petalkeel-shaped, crested, enclosing stamens and style, the crest6-10-lobed, the lobes often tinged with red-violet; stamens8, arranged in a fan-shaped pattern within the lower petal;filaments connate nearly to apex; ovary obovoid to orbicular,0.6-0.8 mm long; style curved, flattened, recessed amongstamens; stigmas 2, widely spaced, on either end of the staminalcluster. Capsules ± oblong, 1.8-2.6 mm long, 2-valued; seedsoblong, to 1.8 mm long, black, densely erect-pubescent, arillate atbase, the aril slender, bilobed, more than one-third as long asseed. Croat 11988.
Seasonally frequent in clearings. Flowers andfruits principally in the rainy season.
Pantropic weed. Throughout Panama in weedysituations in tropical dry, tropical moist, tropical wet, andpremontane wet forests; known from the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro,Colón, San Blas, Chiriqui, Herrera, Coclé, Panama, andDarién.
See Fig. 313.
