Subshrubs small; branches prostrate, spreading, or ascending, mat-forming. Leaves densely crowded on stems; petiole very short, leaving small pegs on stem when leaves fall off; blade linear-oblong to subulate, margins entire or erose, surfaces glabrous. Pedicels nodding in flower, erect in fruit, slender; bracteoles absent. Flowers: sepals distinct or connate basally, ovate to oblong-ovate; petals connate ca. 1/2 their lengths, white or tinged with pink, apex blunt; stamens not exserted; filaments swollen at base; anthers inverted at anthesis, with awns; ovary globose to ovoid; style ovoid or conic; stigma simple. Capsules borne on erect pedicels, globose to ovoid, dehiscent basipetally. x = 16.

Fls 5-merous; cal deeply 5-parted, persistent; cor campanulate, lobed to the middle or beyond; style ovoid to conic, constricted at base; stigma minute, truncate; filaments short and flat; anthers approximate to the pistil at the basal constriction of the style; anthers subglobose, opening by 2 terminal pores, bearing 2 very slender, spreading or deflexed, dorsal spurs; capsule subglobose, loculicidal; dwarf, matted shrubs of moss-like aspect, with numerous crowded, linear, flat, evergreen lvs erect and loosely imbricate in several rows, the fls solitary, nodding, terminal, white or pink. 2, circumboreal.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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