Heliophila verna

Description: — Plants annual herbs, not glaucous, glabrous. Trichomes absent. Stems herbaceous, 2.5 – 7 cm tall, smooth, terete, erect, simple or rarely 1 - branched above. Leaves cauline, subfleshy; petiole absent; blade simple, filiform, 1.5 – 2.7 cm × 0.3 – 0.5 mm, margin, entire, not auriculate at base, without a pair of stipule-like glands at node, glabrous, base not decurrent. Racemes terminal, lax, 7 – 11 - flowered, elongated in fruit, not secund; rachis straight, glabrous; fruiting pedicels without a pair of basal bract-like glands, not articulate at base, glabrous, slender and narrower than fruit, ascending, straight, persistent, lowermost 2 – 3 mm long; flower buds oblong. Sepals suberect, oblong, 1.5 – 1.7 mm long, glabrous, caducous, both pairs not cucullate at apex, not saccate at base. Petals white, oblong-obovate, 1.4 – 1.5 × 0.7 – 0.8 mm, erect, obtuse at apex, unappendaged, not papillate; claw absent. Stamens erect, subtetradynamous; filaments 0.5 – 0.6 mm long, glabrous at base, all unappendaged; anthers ovate, ca. 0.3 mm long, not apiculate at apex. Nectar glands lateral, minute, median glands absent. Ovary glabrous; ovules 14 – 18 per ovary. Fruit dehiscent silique, capsular, linear, excluding style 1.5 – 2.3 cm × 0.7 – 0.9 mm, terete, glabrous, submoniliform, undulate along replum, subtorulose, ascending; valves papery, midvein distinct, lateral veins obscure, margin not thickened; gynophore obsolete; style in fruit 2.2 – 3.5 mm long, cylindrical, slender, 0.2 – 0.3 mm wide, glabrous; stigma entire. Seeds uniseriate, ovoid, plump, wingless, not margined, 0.7 – 0.8 × 0.5 – 0.55 mm; cotyledons diplecolobal. 2 n = 18. Phenology: — Flowering and fruiting late September into October.