Erect rounded annual or short-lived perennial to 40 cm high, monoecious. Leaves thin with scaly sheen on both surfaces; lamina very broadly obovate to rhomboidal, 15–35 mm long, coarsely sinuate, apex rounded, base cuneate; petiole slightly winged, ±½ length of lamina. Male flowers in glomerules forming continuous or disjunct slender spikes. Female flowers in axillary clusters. Fruiting bracteoles sessile or minutely stipitate, united towards base into a compressed broadly turbinate tube 0.5–1.5 mm high and 1.5–2.5 mm wide at apex, expanding above into thin adpressed prominently veined fan-shaped valves with sinuate margins, 5–8 mm wide and 2.5 mm high; appendages inflated, compressed, ovate to orbicular, cordate at base, equal to or exceeding valves, attached at apex of tube of each bracteole by a short stipe. Seed depressed orbicular; radicle lateral, erect.
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