Unarmed Buckwheat

Herbs, spreading, annual, 0.5-3 dm, glandular, greenish or reddish. Stems: caudex absent; aerial flowering stems mostly erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.1-0.5 dm, glandular. Leaves basal and cauline; basal: petiole 0.5-2 cm, glabrous, not or indistinctly winged, ciliate, blade spatulate, 1-4(-4.5) × 0.4-1.5(-1.8) cm, glabrous, margins ciliate; cauline sessile, blade lanceolate, 0.3-1 × 0.1-0.3 cm, similar to basal blade. Inflorescences cymose, open or diffuse, 5-25 × 5-30 cm; branches glandular; bracts 3, scalelike, 0.5-1.5 × 1-2 mm, occasionally semileaflike, 4-10(-12) × 1-5 mm. Peduncles absent or erect, straight, slender, 0.1-1 cm, glandular. Involucres turbinate, 1.5-1.9 × 1-1.2 mm, glabrous or hispidulous; teeth 4, erect or nearly so, 0.8-1.2 mm. Flowers 4-6, 1.2-1.8 mm; perianth pink to reddish, hirsutulous with stiff, white, hooked hairs; tepals monomorphic, oblong; stamens included, 1-1.5 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes brown, lenticular, 1.5-1.9 mm, glabrous; beak not exserted beyond tepals.

Oxytheca inermis S. Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 12: 273. 1877