Khadia

Compact to mat-forming dwarf perennials; rootstock thickened or not, bearing +/- horizontal branches with internodes mostly reduced and hidden or elongated up to 40 mm, with adventitious roots at nodes; +/- anisophyllous. Leaves opposite, with 2 (3, in cultivation up to 4) new leaf pairs per branch, per season; connate at base, triquetrous distally with acuminate tips, semiterete basally and broader than thick, dark green or glaucous; subepidermal enlarged tanniniferous cells (pellucid dots) concentrated along keel and margins. Flowers solitary, pedicellate; opening in sunlight or in afternoon ( C. carolinensis). Sepals 5 or 6. Petals in 2-4 series, white to deep magenta, with shades of pink. Stamens: filaments variable in colour and length; staminodes white to purple, forming a distinct cone in newly opened flowers, spreading and bending backwards in time. Nectary: glands forming a dark green crenate ring. Ovary with upper surface convex or centrally depressed; placentas parietal; stigmas (4)5-11, sometimes longer than filaments. Fruit a (4)5-11-locular capsule, reddish when young, dark brown later; pedicel persistent or breaking off, resulting in a tumble fruit; valves without wings but with enlarged rims; bases of expanding keels widely separated; covering membranes complete, rather firm, filled +/- with a whitish spongy tissue, with low rims at distal ends; closing device at distal rim of capsule reduced to a tiny bud or knob formed by placenta or by an outgrowth of expanding sheet over some protrusion from endocarp. Seeds +/- 1 mm long; micropylar end curved and elongated or short and straight. F lowering in summer. D istinguishing characters: perennials tufted with tuberous roots, often trailing and rooting at the nodes; flowers solitary.