Herbs, annual, erect or sprawling, usually branched often forming tangled mats to 10 × (3-)5-20 dm, ascending branches sparsely scurfy. Leaves many, subsessile or very short petiolate; blade subconcolorous, lanceolate to oblong, elliptic, or oval, (8-)10-30(-40) × 3-12(-15) mm, margin sharply dentate to entire. Staminate flowers in glomerules in terminal spikes or panicles 3-20 cm, or reduced to solitary, rounded, terminal glomerule. Pistillate flower in small clusters, axillary. Fruiting bracteoles sessile or subsessile (stipe to 1 mm), cuneate-orbicular to obovate, somewhat compressed, 2.1-3.5 × (1.7-)2-3.7 mm, united 1/2 of length, margin sharply and often slenderly toothed beyond middle, faces often rather strongly veined, smooth or with 1 or more slender or flattened appendages. Seeds brown, 1-1.3(-1.5) mm. 2n = 18.
Alkaline valleys, marshy areas, valley grasslands, coastal sage scrub, sometimes as a ruderal weed; at elevations from 70-1,300 metres.
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