| General Information |
| Distribution | Native to tropical Africa, cultivated as an ornamental ground cover and persisting around abandoned homesites.In the Hawaiian Islands,
naturalized on
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Maui, Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Decumbent herbs; stems rooting at the nodes, up to 20 cm or more long, moderately hirtellous to pilose.
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Leaves
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Leaves ovate to ovate-lanceolate or suborbicular, 1.5-7 cm long, 0.8-4 cm wide, 3-nerved, both surfaces sparsely
to densely pilose, margins ciliate and somewhat crenulate, apex acute, base truncate to short-attenuate; petioles 0.5-2.5 cm long.
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Flowers
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Pedicels ca. 2 mm long in fruit; hypanthium 5-7 mm long in flower, densely covered with green, spreading, hair-like, linear-oblong appendages 2-4 mm long, apex stellate and sparsely to moderately bristly along their length; calyx lobes lanceolate in fruit, 5-6.5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide at base, bristly at apex and externally; petals ca. 20 mm long, ca. 15 mm wide; anthers of larger stamens pink or lavender, 7-8 mm long, connective prolonged 3-4 mm and modified basally into a deeply 2-lobed spur 1.5-2 mm long, anthers of smaller stamens yellow, 5.5-7 mm long, connective prolonged 0.5 mm or less with a 2-lobed spur usually 0.5 mm long.
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Fruit
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Fruiting hypanthium cylindrical-campanulate, ca. 1 cm long, ca. 0.9 cm wide.
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Seeds
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Seeds ca. 1 mm long, prominently ribbed dorsally with a deep pit on each side.
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Chromosomes
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2n = 30
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