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Leaves 1.7–7.5 × 1–4 cm; of highly characteristic shape, spathulate with the broadest part of the lamina abruptly narrowed above to a short, acute to rather blunt apex, and narrowed below to a broad claw which contracts abruptly into a short, 1–5 mm. long, usually densely pilose petiole; upper leaf surface darker with scattered long hairs and usually rather few short hairs, lower surface paler with long hairs along the primary venation and usually more plentiful shorter and finer hairs between.
Outer 2 tepals oblong-elliptic to Ungulate, 5–6 mm., moderately to densely furnished with long, soft, white multicellular hairs, with broad hyaline margins and a green central band with a pair of veins on each side of the shortly excurrent midrib; inner 3 tepals scarcely shorter, glabrous or at least less densely pilose than the outer, wider, more narrowly hyaline-margined, the usually single pair of lateral nerves anastomosing into a reticulum above.
Perennial herb, much-branched with usually weak and slender branches, scrambling over other vegetation or prostrate and more or less matted, 0.6–1.4 m. (and probably more); stems thinly pilose and terete-striate, the upper part and branches more densely pilose or lanate, more or less tetragonous with pale angles above, purplish to green, nodes somewhat swollen.
Modified flowers scarcely visible as more than a minute bud at anthesis, rapidly accrescent, of mostly 4–6 bracteoliform and spiniform processes, all with uncinate apices, the outer with short, broad, hyaline bases; very reduced innermost processes also present.
Stamens finally subequalling or c. three quarters the length of the tepals, filaments slender; pseudostaminodes c. 1–1.5 mm., oblong to flabellate, finely lanate along the margins and across the back, with a short incurved ventral scale.
Annual erect herb or scrambler. Leaves oblong-spathulate. Inflorescence a globose head. Perianth segments of sterile flowers converted into rigid hooked spines. Flowers greenish white.
Capsule c. 3 mm., oblong ellipsoid, firm; seed c. 2.75 mm., oblong-ellipsoid, brown, almost smooth, “burr” spherical, very prehensile, c. 1.5–3 cm. in diam., including the spines.
Style slender, c.3–3.5 mm.; ovary obovoid-pyriform, c.0.75 mm., thickened above.
