Perennial herb, ('female' + 'male'), 'female' or occasionally ('female' + 'male') + 'female', lax, straggling or scrambling, few-to several-stemmed, with rhizomes or ± woody base, (strongly) fetid. Stems c. 0.2-0.6(-0.9) m long, sometimes rooting at lower nodes, branching irregular, branches to 300 mm long, often with leafy short shoots. Leaves decussate; blades 10-18(-23) x (1.5-)2-3(-4) mm, narrowly ovate-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, ± spreading, membranaceous, glabrous or margins faintly scabrid; stipular sheath cup-shaped, with 3-5 (or sometimes more) bristles c. 1-2(-2.5) mm long. Flowers in groups of few to 1, lateral and/or terminal, mostly on short lateral branches, fruiting pedicels elongated, 3-12(-20) mm long; calyx (4-)5-6-merous, lobes (1-)2.5-5 mm long, linear-lanceolate, 1 or 2 often much larger than the others, erect to spreading, or apices or upper thirds recurved; corolla (4-)5(6-)-merous, greenish, greenish yellow or dark purplish brown to blackish. ('female' + 'male'): tube 1-2 mm long, lobes 2-3.5 x 0.7-1.2 mm; anthers 1.5-2.2 mm long; stigma often shorter than in 'female'. 'Female': tube 0.8-1.2 mm long, lobes 0.7-1.5 x 0.2-0.4 mm; stigma 1.5-13 mm long; ovary c. 1.5-2.0 mm long. Fruit green, turning dark brown, c. 2-3.5(-4) x 1-1.5 mm, ± obovate to cylindrical, often ± ribbed, 1-seeded; diaspore c. 2-3(-4) x 1-1.5 mm, greyish to black, ± cylindrical, hollowed out at base (hollow sometimes filled with easily removable `plug' of spongy tissue), ± rugose, occasionally indistinctly ribbed.
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