Herb, evidently perennial from rhizome-like base; monoecious; to ca 0.5 m high; stems slender, spreading, with strigose or recurved hairs. Leaves membranous; petioles mostly 0.5-1.7 cm long; stipules lanceolate, acuminate, dark, pubescent, ca 1.5-2.2 mm long; blades ovate, ca 2-4 cm long, 1.5-2.8 cm broad, conspicuously strigose on both sides and with minute reddish glands beneath, 5-veined at base, the base truncate to rounded, the margins crenate-serrate (ca 10-25 teeth on a side), the apex acute. Inflorescences spicate; spikes unisexual, at distant nodes; 9 spikes terminal, sessile or subsessile, cylindrical, densely flowered, ca 1-2 cm long, 3-4 mm broad; male spikes axillary,-+ sessile, densely flowered, 0.7-1.2 cm long, 2-2.5 mm thick. Pistillate flowers 2 per bract; bracts ? ovate, mostly with 7 gland-tipped obtuse lobes cut ca 1 2 way, becoming ca 3-3.5 mm broad; calyx-segments 3, elliptic, pointed, pubescent, ca 0.7-0.8 mm long; ovary densely hirsute-hispid and muriculate, the styles glabrous or nearly so, rather thick, ca 2.2-3.3 mm long, with 2-5 distal subulate branches. Capsules not seen; seeds [ex Muell.-Arg.] ovoid, minutely foveolate, ca 1 mm long.
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