Erect perennial with a woody, probably rhizomatous rootstock, 50–130 cm. tall.. Stem fistular, succulent, finely ribbed and grooved with hard, inflated nodes, ± branched with long, ascending branches, ± densely furnished with brown or pale, flattened, simple or fimbriate scaly hairs resembling the scales on fern stipes, which are soon evanescent.. Lower leaves deltoid in outline, pinnate to sub-bipinnate with usually 2(–3) pairs of pinnae, the lower 1–2 pairs petiolulate with a single pair of pinnules, the larger terminal leaflets simple to pinnatipartite; leaflets mostly 2–8 × 1.5–5 cm., rather jaggedly dentate with mucronate teeth, acuminate at the apex, cuneate to subtruncate below, ± furnished along the primary or all venation with somewhat flattened often forked hairs; sheaths broad, oblong, striate, 2–3 cm., auriculate on each side of the petiole, ± papillate-pilose; petioles scaly-hairy when young (as is the rhachis), the lowest very long, to ± 20 cm., rapidly shortening upwards; stem leaves gradually reducing, becoming sessile on the sheaths, trisect with smaller leaflets or finally simple.. Umbels on 1.5–5 cm. peduncles; rays 3–6, glabrous, 1.8–5 cm.; involucre small, of 5–8 linear bracts ± 2–3 mm. long; partial umbels 4–9-flowered (2–5 functionally ♂ and 2–3(–4) hermaphrodite and fruiting); fruiting pedicels 3–8 mm., those of ♂ flowers shorter; involucel of ± 3–5 linear, 1.5–2.5 mm. bracteoles.. Calyx-teeth conspicuous, subulate, often incurved, ± 0.75 mm.. Petals greenish, ± 0.75 mm.. Fruit narrowly elliptic-fusiform, ± 7–10 × 3 mm., glabrous, the primary ribs very broad and blunt; stylopodia conical, conspicuous, firm, in young fruit clearly wider than the ovary, which is constricted below them; styles short, recurved, equalling or slightly shorter than the stylopodia.. Fig. 27, p.79.
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