Herbs, annual, weakly ascending to procumbent or clambering. Stems 5-80 cm tall, 4-angled, often little branched, glabrescent, densely retrorsely aculeolate on angles. Leaves in whorls of 6-8, subsessile; blade drying papery, narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 10-32 × 2-6 mm, glabrescent, upper side glabrous, lower side densely aculeolate along midrib, base acute, margins densely retrorsely and antrorsely aculeolate, apex acute; vein 1. Inflorescences elongated thyrsoid, cymes terminal and axillary on short lateral stems, mostly 3-5-flowered; axes retrorsely aculeolate; bracts none or leaflike and 3-5 mm; pedicels 0.3-2 mm. Ovary ellipsoid to didymous, 0.3-0.5 mm, smooth to verrucose or spinulose. Corolla white, rotate, 1-1.5 mm in diam., lobed for 2/3 or more; lobes triangular. Mericarps subglobose, ca. 3 × 4-6 mm, becoming verrucose to tuberculate but never with uncinate trichomes, pendulous on arching pedicels to 7 mm. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. May-Mar.
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