Jovellana "semiflagriformes"
Small much-branched shrubs, slow-growing and often widespreading, the woody base reaching diam. of several cm. Stems decumbent, branches ascending, of whipcord form with small closely imbricate lvs yellow-green in life but drying to black; internodes glab. and hidden by overlapping connate lf-bases. Lvs entire, glab. except for short stiff marginal cilia. Infls lateral, simple, often ∞ near tips; peduncle slender with short stiff, often retrorse, hairs. Fls a few pairs, white, sessile or nearly so in axils of opp., connate, ciliate bracts. Calyx-lobes 4, resembling bracts, glab. except for marginal cilia. Fls often, possibly always, unisexual and dimorphic, plants almost or quite dioecious; ♂ with larger corolla, long filaments holding large anthers well above tube, small ovary, style narrowly clavate at tip, long and conspicuous after corolla-fall when it projects at least the length of the calyx; ♀ with smaller corolla, very short filaments, anthers small or abortive and scarcely exserted, style short with broad capitate stigma, ovary broad and glab. Capsule strongly laterally compressed, septum across narrowest diam., dehiscence by two loculicidal splits but the septum parting also so that old capsules show 4 equal narrow valves. Seeds flat and ± circular, sts only 1-2 in each loculus. Rock-dwelling plants of South Id mountains.
On seedlings and some reversion shoots stems have some hairs and lvs are larger and spathulate, pinnately lobed and glab. in H. ciliolata, in the other three spp. entire, with scattered short hairs on both surfaces in H. tetrasticha and H. cheesemanii, on margins only in H. tumida. Withered infls us. persist for at least a year, showing that annual growth of a twig is about 1·5 cm., and also, since some fr.-valves us. remain, giving an indication whether a plant inclines regularly to ♂ or ♀. Only very rarely does a plant bearing fls with well-developed anthers have an occ. capsule at the base of an old infl.
