Johnstonella punensis

Description. Plants annual herbs, base of plant sometimes woody at maturity, 10 - 15 cm tall. Root a taproot, not reddish. Stems with primary axis giving rise to secondary branches from base and mid-region, densely appressed-strigose only or appressed-strigulose and spreading to inclined-hispidulous, the trichomes whitish to greyish, 0.5 - 1.1 mm long. Leaves alternate, sessile, conduplicate, often recurved, grey-green, 8 - 13 x 1 - 2 mm, smaller above and at extreme base, linear to narrowly oblanceolate, entire, apex obtuse to rounded, both surfaces short-hirsute, trichomes ascending, basally white-pustulate on adaxial surface. Inflorescence of ca. 10 - 20 cymules, terminating upper lateral branches, straight at maturity, cymules 3 - 7 cm long in fruit, with ca. 10 - 20 flowers, peduncles 1 - 2 cm long, fruits erect to ascending, lowest fruits not touching, inflorescence bracts at cymule base and along peduncles, bracts similar to, slightly smaller than vegetative leaves. Flowers mostly, but not all, bracteate, bracts linear to narrowly elliptic, ascending, slightly conduplicate, straight to incurved, 3 - 10 mm long, decreasing in size towards apex. Pedicels ca. 0.5 mm long. Calyx ovoid, symmetric, ca. 2 mm long in flower, 2.5 - 3 mm long in fruit, deciduous at maturity, aposepalous, sepals lanceolate, apically narrowly acute, ascending to erect, straight to slightly recurved apically, mid-rib abaxially slightly thickened, margins appressed-hirsute, mid-rib inclined to spreading-hispid. Corolla white, rotate to funnelform, tube as long as calyx, limb ca. 1 mm broad. Gynobase 1.1 - 1.4 mm long, ca. as long as nutlet. Style ca. 0.5 mm long, extending 0.3 - 0.5 mm beyond nutlet apices. Nutlets 4, brown, erect, 1.1 - 1.5 x 0.7 - 0.9 mm, homomorphic or slightly heteromorphic in size only with the abaxial nutlet slightly larger and more adherent to the gynobase, all nutlets brown, generally ovate (length: width ratio ca. 1.3 - 1.8), very rarely lance-ovate, base rounded, margins sharp-angled but lacking a prominent lineate rim, apex acute, rounded at extreme tip, abaxially convex, adaxially concave-incurved, lacking papillae or tubercles, surface nearly smooth to dimpled or rugulose, spinal ridge absent, attachment scar ventral groove margins abutted or with one side slightly overlapping in upper two-thirds, with an open triangular areole in the lower third, margins laterally bifid at base.