Herbs, annual. Stems erect and ascending, sparsely branched or simple, obtusely angled, 1.5-10(-15) dm, stout, scurfy when young. Leaves sessile or short petiolate; blade white abaxially, green adaxially, linear to lanceolate, elliptic, or oblong, 15-75 × (1-)3-25 mm, thin, base cuneate to long attenuate, margin coarsely sinuate-dentate or entire, apex rounded to acute, mucronate, densely scurfy and pale abaxially, green and glabrous adaxially. Staminate flowers in glomerules, forming slender, usually dense, naked terminal narrowly paniculate spikes, panicles 6-30 cm; glomerules beadlike, small, 2-3 mm thick; calyx 5-cleft. Pistillate flowers in few-flowered axillary clusters. Fruiting bracteoles short stipitate, cuneate-orbiculate or broadly cuneate, compressed, 2-2.5 mm, united basally, apex rounded, acutely 5-dentate, faces 3-veined, usually unappendaged, rarely obscurely tuberculate. Seeds pale brown, 1 mm.
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