Herbs, perennial, climbing or procumbent to usually erect, 0.1-1 m tall, from a slender rootstock with purplish rhizomes. Stems somewhat stout, 4-angled, smooth, sparsely to densely hirsute, villous, or villosulous and often densely puberulent at nodes, angles thickened. Leaves in whorls of 4, subsessile or petiole to 1.5 mm; blade drying papery to leathery, green to gray, or dark brown, ovate to broadly elliptic, 6-30 × 3-20 mm, length/breadth index mostly 2 or less, sparsely to densely hirtellous, villosulous, or hispidulous to scaberulous at least on principal veins, abaxially often glandular-punctate and/or-striate, base rounded to acute, margins antrorsely ciliate to ciliolate and flat to thinly revolute, apex rounded to obtuse; principal veins palmate, 3(or 5). Inflorescences thyrsoid to paniculiform, with several-to many-flowered, 2-10 cm long cymes in uppermost leaf axils and terminal; peduncles glabrescent to sparsely scaberulous, hirtellous, puberulent, or villosulous; bracts narrowly spatulate to narrowly elliptic, 1-3 mm; pedicels 0.5-2.5 mm. Flowers dioecious, polygamo-dioecious, or sometimes ?hermaphroditic. Ovary obovoid, in staminate flowers ca. 0.5 mm and glabrous to scaberulous or sparsely strigillose, in pistillate and bisexual flowers 0.8-1 mm and usually moderately to densely strigillose, particularly on their lateral side. Corolla white or pale yellow, rotate, 2-2.5 mm in diam., glabrous; lobes 4, ovate-triangular, acute to rounded. Mericarps ellipsoid, 1-1.5 mm, with sparse to dense and spreading uncinate trichomes 0.5-0.8 mm, rarely scaberulous or glabrous. Fl. Apr-Aug(-Oct), fr. May-Dec.
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A herb. It can be climbing and 1 m long. It has a slender rootstock with purple underground stems or rhizomes. The stems are 4 angled. The leaves are in rings of 4. They are oval and 6-30 mm long by 3-20 mm wide. The fruit are small and round and 0.5 mm across.
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