Nemacladus gracilis Eastw.

Nemacladus gracilis Eastw. Bull. Torrey Club 30: 500. 1903
Nemacladus ramosissimus var. gracilis Munz, Am. Jour. Bot. 11: 240. 1924.
Branches weakly or strongly zigzag, often divaricate; plants 4-12 (19) cm. tall; stem wholly glabrous or pubescent below (the whole plant infrequently pubescent), dull or somewhat lustrous, brownish or purplish; rosette-leaves usually fewer than 10, ovate to elliptic. usually obtuse at tip and often narrowed abruptly to a very short petiolar base, entire or minutely dentate, rarely subpinnatifid, the blades 0.1-0.3 (0.45) cm. wide by 0.25-0.6 (O.S) cm. long, mostly 1.25-2.5 times as long as wide, when dry variable in color, from green to brownish or purplish, sometimes yellowish, mostly pubescent at least on the lower (abaxial) surface, often densely so; pedicels wide-spreading to ascending, often strongly bowed upward near base or toward the middle, mostly abruptly bent or cured near tip so that the flower and fruit are erect or nearly so, the double curve of the pedicel often a conspicuous feature of the plant; fruiting pedicels (.8) 10-16 mm. long, slender but hardly capillary, distinctly thicker than a human hair, smooth and glabrous (rarely minutely ciliate on upper side near base); flower-bracts usually ovate, when flattened out almost as wide as long (sometimes wider than long), glabrous or ciliate on margins or on adaxial surface, blunt at tip, apparently fleshy, 0.7-2.0 (3.0) mm. long, sometimes as much as 2.5 mm. wide, usually conduplicate at base and wholly concealing the base of the pedicel; corolla white, 1-3 mm. long, campanulate, the tube 0.5-1.5 mm. long, 0.3-0.6 times as long as the whole corolla; filament-tube 1.0-2.0 mm. long, abruptly curved near tip ; appendages near base of filament ; stipe very short and bearing several (6-10) very delicate spreading hairlike and pointed cells, which are about 0.25 mm. in length; anthers 0.2-0.35 mm. long; h>-panthium roimded at base or acute, cup-shaped in anthesis, little modified in fruit ; capsule half inferior or slightly less, (1.2) 1.5-2.0 (2.5) mm. in diameter, about as wide as high, the free part rounded; calyx-lobes narrowly triangular to roundeddeltoid or lance-ovate, subacute, 0.6-1.5 (2.0?) mm. long; seeds broadly ellipsoid, slightly exceeding 0.5 mm. in length, with about 10 obscurely defined undulate or zigzag longitudinal ridges and rows of 10-12 irregular shallow pits alternating with the ridges.
Type locality: "Alcalde, Fresno County, California," Eastwood (Cal. Acad.!). Distribution; Southern Washoe County, Nevada, and Monterey County, California, south to Baja California, mostly west of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts.

Nemacladus gracilis is an uncommon species of flowering plant in the bellflower family known by the common names slender threadplant or slender nemacladus. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the Transverse Ranges and adjacent mountains, desert, and valley territory. It can be found in rocky and sandy areas in woodland and grassland habitat. It is a small annual herb producing an upright reddish brown stem no more than about 10 centimeters long. Small lobed oval leaves under a centimeter long occur at the base of the plant. The inflorescence is a series of branches bearing occasional flowers on thin, curving pedicels. There is a single tiny bract at the base of each pedicel. The flower is only about 2 millimeters long. It has five lavender-veined white lobes fused along the lower half.

Nemacladus gracilis là loài thực vật có hoa trong họ Hoa chuông. Loài này được Eastw. mô tả khoa học đầu tiên năm 1903.