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An erect herb. It keeps growing from year to year. It grows 50 cm tall. The leaves are somewhat succulent. They are long and narrow. There are often 2 teeth-like lobes near the base. The flowers are in clusters at the top of the plant. They are white and with pink tinges. The fruit are small and oval. There are 2 subspecies and some varieties.
Flowers 2–4, pedicellate in the axil of bracts, arranged in terminal and lateral spiciform racemes up to 20 cm long; pedicels up to 7 mm long, articulated near the apex, glabrous or pubescent; bracts 3–4 mm long, cup-shaped, membranous, ± hairy outside.
Leaves subsessile, linear to elliptic, lanceolate, ovate or obovate, simple to deeply linear-lobed, sometimes pinnately or bipinnately lobed, each lobe ending in a large slender tip, attenuate at the base into a short petiole.
Nut 7–12 × 2–4 mm, ovoid-oblong, broadest below the middle, trigonous, longitudinally ridged, wrinkled between the ridges, sometimes with small spines, blunt teeth or wings on the angles near the base, glabrous to puberulous.
Stem erect ascending or sparingly branched or much branched from the base, slightly angular, longitudinally ridged, glabrous to puberulous or retrorsely hispidulous, up to 50 cm or more.
Ovary bluntly trigonous; styles of the long-styled flowers 2.5–5.5 mm long; styles of the short-styled flowers 1–1.5(2) mm long, united for two-thirds of their length.
Hermaphrodite flowers heterostylous; perianth tubular, 5-lobed; lobes white or pale pink, tinged with pink or wine-red.
Ocrea 4–8 mm long, membranous, lobed, with the lobes ending in slender setae, hairy outside.
Filaments 3–5 mm long, filiform; anthers c. 1 mm long, oblong, reddish-brown or blue.
Short or long and robust perennial herb, arising from a woody rootstock.
Male flowers present, often solitary; filaments c. 3 mm long.
