Dichondra carolinensis Michx., grass ponyfoot . Perennial herb, mat–forming, stolon–bearing and creeping, fibrous–rooted, not rosetted, to 5 cm tall; shoots with leaves arising from stolons and occasional aboveground section of stem, green organs with 2–armed “strigose” hairs; adventitious roots nodal along stolon, often only 1 root per node.
Stems stolons horizontal just below soild surface, cylindric, 0.7 mm diameter, white, internodes to 28 mm long, glabrous; aboveground internodes green or purplish red, with 2–armed hairs.
Leaves helically alternate, simple, long–petiolate, without stipules; petiole erect to suberect, < 30—46 × 0.65—0.75 mm, white belowground, reddish at soil level, channeled and green aboveground with 2–armed strigose hairs; blade horizontal, kidney–shaped, 10—23 × 10—30 mm, strongly cordate at base, entire, rounded or slightly notched at tip, palmately veined with 3, 5, or 7 principal veins raised on lower surface, bases rounded, to 6 mm long, upper surface typically with scattered, 1–armed pilose hairs, lower surface 2–armed strigose; blade when developing folded (conduplicate).
Inflorescence 1(—2)–flowered cyme (solitary flower), axillary, bracteate; peduncle subtended by bract or bract and bractlet, awl–shaped, 0.9—1.1 mm long, white (belowground) or greenish (aboveground), sparsely short–hairy, or bractlet to 1 mm from base; peduncle + pedicel erect to suberect and straight, 5—15 × 0.45—0.5 mm, << petiole, white belowground and green aboveground, 2–armed strigose, not hooked in fruit.
Flower bisexual, radial, ca. 2 mm across; calyx 5–lobed, to 4.5 mm long, 2–armed strigose on outer (lower) surface, with 1–armed on inner (upper) surface, and densely long–ciliate on margins; tube short bell–shaped; lobes obovate to spathulate–obovate, at anthesis 3.5 × 1.8—2.2 mm increasing to 3.8—4 mm long and ascending to spreading in fruit, mostly 5–veined at base; corolla 5–lobed, pale green; tube ± 1 × 0.6—0.7 mm; lobes ± upright, broadly elliptic to broadly obovate and cupped, ca. 2 × 1.3—1.5 mm; stamens 5, attached to corolla tube at sinuses; filaments ca. 0.7 mm long, pale green; anthers dorsifixed, dithecal, 0.4 mm long, white, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen white; nectary disc surrounding base of ovary, 5–lobed, 0.4 mm long, 0.7 mm diameter, light green; pistil 1, ovary superior, 2–lobed, hidden by 1–armed hairs, 2–chambered, each chamber with 1 ovule; styles 1 mm long, green, 2–branched, 0.4 mm below fork, stigmas terminal 0.25 mm diameter, green.
Fruit capsule, indehiscent, deeply 2–lobed (1–lobed), (1—)2–seeded, at maturity 3 × 5 mm, lobes subspheroid to broadly obovoid (not ovoid), ca. 2.7 × 2.3 mm, long–hairy (pilose), pericarp tan and papery.
Seed subspheroid to broadly obovoid, ca. 1.8 × 1.6 × 1.6 mm, white, with depressed hilum at narrow end.
A. C. Gibson