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A herb. The branches are rigid. It can be erect or lie along the ground. It can grow from seeds each year or grow for a few years. The leaves are narrowly oval and narrowed. They are 2-4 cm long by 1-2.6 cm wide. They are fleshy and have a short sharp tip at the end. The flowers are in groups about 10 cm long and the flowers are 5 mm across. The fruit is a papery capsule 5-6 mm across. It opens by 5 valves. The seeds are 1.1 mm long and black and shiny.
Leaves alternate, petiolate, fleshy; laminas 4–60 × 3–36 mm., oblanceolate-obovate, obovate-spathulate, obovate or orbicular, entire, apex apiculate, base cuneate, glaucous, sometimes turning purple; petiole 1–13 mm. long, winged.
Inflorescences at first terminal but then overtopped and appearing lateral, up to c. 20 cm. long, few-many-flowered, loose, racemose, with lanceolate, membranous bracts up to 3 mm. long.
Erect, procumbent, prostrate or prostrate-ascending annual or short-lived perennial succulent herb up to 50 cm. high, sometimes with woody rootstock.
Stems branched, often sub-woody at base, sometimes very long, the internodes with narrow ridges decurrent from the petiole bases.
Perianth-segments C. 4 mm. long in fruit, herbaceous, with white membranous margins, broadly ovate.
Staminodes many, petaloid, membranous, fugacious, finally longer than perianth-segments.
Seeds purplish-black, concentrically ridged, with white aril.
Fruit yellowish-green, shining, c. as long as perianth.
Flowers pink, mauve or magenta, shortly pedicellate.
Stamens in 2 whorls.
