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Female flowers: pedicels 2–3 mm long, stouter than in the male; calyx 4 mm long, lobes 2.5–3 × 1 mm, triangular-lanceolate, acute, entire, ciliate, pubescent; petals 6 × 2 mm, oblong-oblanceolate, glabrous, otherwise as in male; disk deeply 5-lobed, the lobes unequal, flattened, truncate; ovary 2 × 2 mm, 3-lobed to subglobose, pubescent; styles 3 mm long, united at the base, divaricate, stigmas bifid, rugulose.
Leaf blades 3–7.5(10) × 1–3 cm, lanceolate, very rarely with 2 small basal lobes, acute at the apex, entire or crisped-undulate, cuneate to rounded or occasionally shallowly cordate at the base, membranaceous, penninerved, sparingly pubescent or densely tomentose (var. tomentella) on both surfaces, sometimes purplish beneath; the lateral nerves in 9–15(18) pairs, brochidodromous.
A multistemmed, pubescent, glaucous suffrutex, with a copious white, milky, latex; stems prostrate or straggling, up to 42 cm long, but commonly much less, branching from a scaly underground stem which arises from a tuber; tuber up to 10 cm in diameter and resembling a coconut in shape and size, lying 15–70 cm below ground level, with red flesh.
Inflorescences terminating the short main orthotropic axis and sometimes also the plagiotropic axes (the axes of leafy or floriferous lateral shoots of limited growth); peduncle 1.5–3 cm long; bracts ovate, lanceolate, linear or subulate, the lowest up to 1.2 cm long, the remainder progressively smaller upwards, glandular or not.
Seeds 6.8–7.2 × 4.4–4.9 × 3.5–4 mm, ovoid-ellipsoid, smooth, pale yellowish-grey, sometimes brown-flecked, with a large 2-lobed flabelliform caruncle 2 × 3.5–4.5 mm, chestnut at the base shading to buff.
Fruit 9–11 × 9–12 mm, oblately spheroidal, shallowly 3-lobed, minutely rugulose, subglabrous or sparingly to evenly pubescent, pale green.
Stipules c. 1 mm long, subulate-filiform, or absent.
Petioles 2–12 mm long.
