Herbs, with ligneous vertical taproot 5-9 mm thick; bark pale. Stems erect, diffuse; branches alternate, numerous, horizontal or distally ascending, terete, 1.5-4 dm, densely white farinose when young, glabrate in age; bark becoming pale brownish white and flaky; internodes mostly shorter than 1(-2.4) cm. Leaves alternate, proximalmost subopposite, sessile; blade ovate-deltoid, 0.5-1.5(-2.5) × 5-12(-15) mm, rather firm and flat, base rounded, truncate, or slightly clasping, margin entire or toothed, apex acute, very densely canescent-farinose with a greenish yellow tinge. Flowers sessile, axillary, inconspicuous, mostly in leafy lateral branches with extremely short internodes, arising toward tips of secondary branches. Staminate flowers in most distal axils, 2 mm wide; sepals 3-5, mostly hyaline, curved elliptic, 1.5-1.7 mm, mucronulate, farinose dorsally. Pistillate flowers densely farinose; bracteoles adnate to ovary. Fruiting bracteoles variably and irregularly 3-7-cleft, ovate-orbicular, 3.1-4.7 × (3.2-)4-7 mm, typically somewhat constricted below middle, with terminal lobes (1-)1.5-2.8 mm, densely scurfy, faces doubly cristate or smooth. Seeds dark reddish brown, round-lenticular, 1.5 mm wide, shining; radicle superior.
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