Common chickweed

Plants annual or winter annual, green, with slender taproot. Stems decumbent or ascending, diffusely branched, 4-sided, 5–40 cm, with single line of hairs along each internode. Leaves petiolate (proximal) or ± sessile (distal); blade usually green, ovate to broadly elliptic, 0.5–4 cm × 2–20 mm, base round to cuneate, margins entire, apex acute or shortly acuminate, ± glabrous or ciliate at base. Inflorescences terminal, 5–many-flowered cymes; bracts ovate and shortly acuminate to lanceolate-acute, 1–40 mm, herbaceous. Pedicels ascending, usually straight, deflexed at base in fruit, 3–40 mm, usually with line of hairs. Flowers 2–5 mm diam.; sepals 5, with obscure midrib, ovate-lanceolate, 4.5–5(–6) mm, margins narrow, scarious, apex obtuse, usually glandular-hairy; petals absent or 5, 1–4 mm, shorter than to equaling sepals; stamens 3–5(–8); anthers red-violet; styles 3, outwardly curved, becoming curled, 0.5–1 mm. Capsules green to straw colored, ovoid-oblong, 3–5 mm, somewhat longer than sepals, apex obtuse, opening by 6 valves; carpophore absent. Seeds reddish brown, broadly reniform to round, 0.9–1.3 mm diam., with obtuse, round, or flat-topped (broader than tall) tubercles. 2n = 40, 42, 44.