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Inflorescences terminal on the stem and branches, spiciform, 1.5–2 (2.5) cm. in diam., in robust plants elongate-cylindrical and up to c. 18 cm. long, or sometimes scarcely longer than broad; "spikes" formed of densely congested (more rarely a few of the lower distant) shortly pedunculate cymose clusters composed mostly of triads of fertile flowers each subtended by 1–2 modified flowers; bracts elliptic-oblong, 7–8.5 mm. long, stramineous or silvery, glabrous or furnished with long multicellular hairs about the tip, aristate with the excurrent midrib, the arista usually bent but not sharply uncinate; bracteoles broadly ovate, acuminate, 4.5–9 mm. long, glabrous or furnished with long multicellular hairs towards the apex, long-aristate with the excurrent midrib, the arista sharply uncinate at the tip or not.
Perennial herb, very variable in habit from bushy and c. 0.6–1 m. high to sprawling or decumbent and rooting at the lower nodes, or subscandent, or rambling in forests to a height of 6 m. or more; stems and branches terete and striate in the older parts, becoming bluntly tetragonous and finally sharply tetragonous-sulcate above, glabrous or moderately to densely (especially upwards) furnished with long, spreading or more or less appressed fuscous, bristly, multicellular hairs; nodes distinctly swollen in life, in dried material the stem and branches commonly shrunken just above the nodes.
Tepals 4.5–7.5 mm. long, narrowly lanceolate-oblong, 3–(5) nerved; outer 2 tepals rather feebly nerved, gibbous dorsally at the base, broadly hyaline-margined, glabrous or almost so, acute to rather blunt, the midrib excurrent in a short mucro, rarely feebly uncinate; inner 3 tepals progressively more strongly nerved, more narrowly hyaline-margined and blunter, the innermost obtuse and often minutely lacerate-dentate at the apex with the midrib ceasing below the apex, all 3 moderately to densely furnished with long, white, multicellular, barbellate hairs.
Leaves very variable in size and shape, small and roundish (sometimes with undulate margins) to large and broadly oblong-or elliptic-ovate, 1–14 × 0.7–6 cm., subcordate to attenuate at the base, rounded to acuminate at the apex, glabrous to more or less densely furnished with long, appressed, multicellular hairs on both surfaces, more rarely tomentose; petiole distinct, up to c. 2.5 cm. long.
A herb. It keeps growing from year to year. It can grow from 60-100 cm tall. It can be sprawling or lie along the ground forming roots at the nodes. Leaves vary in shape and size. They can be small and round or large and oval and 1-14 cm long by-.7-6 cm wide. The flowers are at the ends of the stems and branches. The fruit is an oval capsule 2-3 mm long.
Filaments slender, 3.5–5 mm. long, the pseudostaminodes cuneate-obovate, c. one quarter the length of the filaments, fringed above, frequently with a filiform dorsal scale.
Modified flowers with a few, narrow, lanceolate, bracteoliform processes with uncinate apices, simple hooks, and shorter membranous scales within.
Robust, erect herb or scrambler, up to 0.7 m high. Leaves broadly ovate, acuminate, hairy. Inflorescence elongate. Flowers white.
Style slender, long, 2–3 mm.; ovary obovoid, c. 1 mm. long, rather firm.
Seed c. 1.5–2.75 mm. long, ovoid, brown, shining, almost smooth.
Capsule ovoid, 2–3 mm. long, membranous save for the firm apex.
