Herbs, perennial, procumbent to scrambling or matted, up to 1 m, from slender rhizomes. Stems glabrescent and smooth to sparsely or moderately pilose to villous or retrorsely hispid, nodes more densely hairy, angles 4, usually thickened. Leaves in whorls of 4, subsessile; blade drying membranous, green, elliptic, ovate-lanceolate, or lanceolate, 5-50 × 3-15 mm, length/breadth index normally above 2.5, adaxially hispidulous to hirsute, abaxially glabrescent to densely pilose and usually glandular-punctate, base cuneate to obtuse, margins sparsely to densely pilose or antrorsely ciliate, apex acute to acuminate and often mucronulate; principal veins 3, palmate. Inflorescences terminal and in axils of uppermost leaves, paniculate, many flowered, 2-12 cm, diffusely branched; peduncles pilose to glabrescent; bracts inconspicuous, ligulate to ovate, 1.5-2.5 mm, often lacking upward; pedicels 2.5-7 mm. Flowers dioecious, polygamous, or ?hermaphroditic. Ovary obovoid, ca. 0.5 mm, densely appressed hairy. Corolla white, rotate, 1-1.5 mm in diam.; lobes 4, ovate, subacute. Mericarps ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, with dense, uncinate, stiff and spreading, basally white to apically brown trichomes ca. 0.8 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Nov.
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