PLANT: Annual herbs from a slender, fibrous root. STEMS: much branched, prostrate to somewhat ascending, 2-16 cm long, often reddish, glabrous. LEAVES: alternate, linear, cylindrical or nearly so, 4-15 (18) mm long, 0.5-3 mm wide; nodes with conspicuous white-villous hairs. INFLORESCENCE: white-villous; involucral bracts 6-8, 3-8 mm long, 0.5-3 mm wide. FLOWERS: solitary or clustered at the ends of branches; sepals typically turning reddish at maturity; petals 2-2.5 mm long, yellow to copper colored; stigmatic branches 3-4. CAPSULE: 1-2 mm in diameter; stipe 1-1.5 mm long. SEEDS: iridescent grayish or blackish at maturity, rounded or stellate-tuberculate. NOTES: Sandy or gravelly soils, in open or brushy sites, often in disturbed places: Cochise, Coconino, Graham, Greenlee, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, Yuma cos.; 350-2050 m (1100-6800 ft); Mar–Nov; MO to CO; s to TX and NM. REFERENCE: Allison Bair, Marissa Howe, Daniela Roth, Robin Taylor, Tina Ayers, and Robert W. Kiger., 2006, Vascular Plants of Arizona: Portulacaceae. CANOTIA 2(1): 1-22.