Herbs, annual, ascending, branching from base. Stems (4-)8-30(-40) cm tall, tender, 4-angled, with retrorsely aculeolate angles and numerous, rather short internodes. Leaves at middle stem region in whorls of (5 or)6-8(or 9), ± sessile; blade drying papery, linear-elliptic to narrowly oblanceolate, mostly glabrous but margins and sometimes abaxial vein sparsely to densely antrorsely aculeolate, base acute, apex acute-acuminate. Inflorescences narrowly thyrsoid, with axillary and terminal cymes mostly 2-6-flowered; peduncles as long or 2-4 × as long as subtending leaves, slightly divaricate, with 1 or 2 bracts, ± smooth; pedicels thin, 0.5-4 mm, reflexed and hardly elongated in fruit. Flowers hermaphroditic. Ovary obovoid to ellipsoid, ca. 0.8 mm, glabrous. Corolla white or greenish white, slightly cup-shaped, 0.8-1.2 mm in diam.; lobes ovate, acute to shortly apiculate. Mericarps subglobose to kidney-shaped, 0.8-1.5 mm, colliculate, glabrous.
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