Creeping Inchplant

Herbs, perennial, mat-forming, repent (flowering stems ascending). Leaves 2-ranked, gradually reduced toward ends of flowering stems; blade ovate to lanceolate or lanceolate-oblong, 1--3.5 ´ 0.6--1 cm (distal leaf blades much narrower than sheaths when sheaths opened, flattened), margins scabrid, apex acute, glabrous. Inflorescences sessile in axils of distal leaves of flowering stems, composed of pairs of sessile cymes (sometimes reduced to single cymes). Flowers bisexual and pistillate, odorless, subsessile; petals inconspicuous, white, lanceolate, 3--6 mm; stamens 0--6, long-exserted; filaments glabrous; ovary 2-locular, stigma penicillate. Capsules 2-locular. Seeds 1 mm.

Herbs perennial. Stems prostrate, forming mats, much branched, rooting at nodes. Leaves distichous, gradually becoming smaller distally along flowering shoots; leaf blade ovate to lanceolate, 1--4 × 0.6--1.2 cm, glabrous except for scabrid margin and apex, base clasping, subcordate or obtuse, apex acuminate. Inflorescence of paired (sometimes solitary), sessile, dense cincinni in axils of distal leaves. Flowers bisexual or male. Sepals green, linear-oblong, 3--4 mm, hirsute along midvein, margin scarious. Petals white, lanceolate, 3--6 mm. Stamens 3; filaments long exserted; connectives broadly deltoid. Ovary oblong, subtrigonous, 2-loculed, apex pilose; ovules 2 per locule. Style filiform, long; stigma penicillate. Capsule oblong, ca. 1.5 mm, 2-valved. Seeds 2 per valve, brown, ca. 1 mm, rugose. 2 n = 12.

Flowering early spring (Tex.) or summer--fall (Fla.). Shady, rocky or gravelly places, and in citrus groves; introduced; Fla., La., Tex.; West Indies; South America (to Argentina).

Naturalized on roofs of houses. Hong Kong [native to America, from S United States to Argentina].