Paronychia jonesii

Plants annual; taproot slender. Stems prostrate, sprawling-spreading, much-branched, 10-35 cm, short-pubescent. Leaves: sti-pules ovate, 3-7.5 mm, apex acu-minate, entire; blade oblanceolate to spatulate, 5-18 × 1.5-3.5 mm, leathery, apex obtuse to very short-cuspidate, densely appressed-pubescent. Cymes terminal and subterminal, occa-sionally axillary, 3-7-flowered, congested, clusters 3-8 mm wide. Flowers 5-merous, ± extended-urceolate, with enlarged hypanthium and calyx constricted proximally, flaring distally, 1.8-2 mm, pubescent with short, hooked hairs proximally; sepals red-brown, often finely striped or mottled, veins absent, spatulate-obovate to suboblong, 0.8-1.3 mm, leathery to rigid, margins white, 0.1-0.2 mm wide, papery, apex terminated by awn, broadly rounded, awn divergent, 0.3-0.4 mm, broadly conic in proximal 1/ 1/ 2 with white, scabrous spine; staminodes filiform, 0.5-0.6 mm; style 1, 0.7-0.8 mm, cleft in distal 5. Utricles globose, 0.8-1 mm, smooth, glabrous.

Flowering spring-summer. Sandy, open grounds; 10-40 m; Tex.

Paronychia jonesii most closely resembles P. drummondii and is known only from southeastern coastal Texas.