Ascending herb, often robust, at a somewhat advanced age stoloniferous. Stem terete, solid. Stolons creeping or floating, often long, enveloped by appressed sheaths which finally dissolve into fibres. Leaves for the greater part crowded at the base of the plant, erecto-patent, lanceolate from an acute, often decurrent base, rather thick, densely longitudinally nerved, with numerous close-set thin cross-nervules, between the longitudinal nerves very densely and finely longitudinally striate, not plicate; lower leaves long-petioled; higher leaves much more remote, smaller, on shorter petioles; topmost ones sessile or subsessile with a broad base, small, passing into the primary bracts. Lower leaf-sheaths long and broad, stem-clasping, deeply split on the anterior side, gradually narrowed into the petiole. Panicles peduncled, 1-3 times patently branched; primary branches 1 to several in the axils of rather large bracts, usually branched again; ultimate branches spici-form. Flowers more or less distant, either solitary or in small clusters, sessile with a broad base in the axil of a short, broad bract, (♂)(♀). Tepals shortly connate at the base, green or yellowish or the inner dotted with red; 3 outer short; 3 inner considerably longer, vaulted. ♂: Branches of panicle usually thinner and longer than those of ♀, often with a greater number of flowers. Stamens 6, on the base of the perianth, about as long as the inner tepals; filaments filiform from a broader base; anthers small, inserted in a basal cleft. Ovary rudimentary, small; stigmas 3, erect or erecto-patent, shortly clavate. ♀: Staminodes 6, inserted on the base of the perianth, anantherous; those opposite the outer sepals very minute, narrowly triangular; 3 others much longer and broader, rounded, dorsally compressed. Ovary broadly ovoid-globose; stigma sessile, deeply divided into 3 spreading broadish short arms. Fruit drupaceous; exocarp thick, fleshy; endocarp thin-walled, 3-celled, 1-3-seeded.
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