Annual herb with distinct taproot, ca 2-5 dm high; stems moderately to copiously branched, angled, striate, densely shaggy-hirsute with gland-tipped hairs and hispidulous-strigose with appressed sharp-pointed hairs. Leaves mem-branous; petioles pubescent ca 1.5-5.5 mm long; stipules lanceolate, ciliate with sharp-pointed hairs, ca 1.5-4.5 mm long, 0.4-0.9 mm broad; blades mostly elliptic, mostly 3-7 cm long and 1-3 cm broad, pubescent on both sides with both gland- ular and pointed hairs, the veins and midrib raised on both sides, the secondary veins parallel and at right angles to primary ones (venation thus + scalariform), the base obtuse or rounded, the margins shallowly serrate with mostly 15-30 teeth, the apex evenly narrowed or tapering to an acute point. Racemes 1.5-3 cm long, with 1-3 basal 9 and several distal d flowers; rachis pubescent as the stem; bracts with sharp hairs at the apex and on the margins. Staminate flowers with short hispidulous pedicels; calyx-lobes unequal (3 of them smaller and less deeply cut), sparingly hispidulous, 1-veined, acute or apiculate; petals obovate, distinctly unequal, the 3 larger ones ca 1.5-1.8 mm long and 0.6-0.8 mm broad, the two smaller ones ca 1.1-1.3 mm long and 0.5-0.6 mm broad; upper stamens with filaments about as long as or longer than the anthers, the lower stamens with filaments shorter than anthers, the anthers 0.3-0.4 mm long; pistillode entire, rounded, ca 0.25-0.3 mm long. Pistillate flowers with hispidulous pedicels be-coming 2.4-2.7 mm long in fruit; calyx-lobes 5, subequal, convexly rounded on the back, tipped with a sharp seta, margins with gland-tipped and with sharp hairs, in fruit ca 1.5-2.2 mm long and distinctly longitudinally ribbed; petals subequal, narrowly elliptic, 1.2-1.6 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm broad, exserted beyond the calyx-lobes; ovary densely hispidulous proximally, muricate distally, the styles ca 1 mm long, deeply 3-lobed, the lobes rather slender. Capsules 4.5-5.5 mm broad, greenish with reddish verrucae, the columella ca 1.5 mm long; seeds spheroidal, fuscous-brown, 2.3-2.7 mm in diam.
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