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Stems terete; successive pairs of foliage leaves separated by 1 pair of intercalary cataphylls 0.5-1 cm above node, leaves and cataphylls thus alternating; lateral branches with several pairs of basal cataphylls. Petiole 0.4-0.8 cm long; blade lanceolate, up to 14 x 7 cm, often with slightly attenuate apex and undulate margin, base acute. Monoecious; entirely unisexual plants do not seem to exist; number and positon of few male flowers variable, apical or scattered among females; often no more than 1 male flower above each bract, and sometimes none. Inflorescence up to 8 cm long; 5-8 fertile internodes above and 0-several pairs of sterile cataphylls below; flowers either 2-seriate or 3-seriate, sometimes on same spike, when distal internodes tending to be 2-seriate; each flower area with up to 15 flowers. Fruit yellow or yellowish-red, spherical to elliptical, ca. 0.3 cm in diam., perianth segments erect; seed very flat.
A very variable shrub, abundantly branched. Shoots slender, slightly com-pressed above, soon becoming terete. Cataphylls a single pair on every joint, 2-5 pairs on the lowest one, pointed. Leaves, at least most of them, obliquely broadly ovate, angustate both toward the base and apex, acuminate, coriaceous, marginally crisped and brown to black in drying, nerveless or obscurely pinnately veined beneath, 5-12 cm. long, 2.5-4.5 cm. broad; petioles about 5 mm. long. Spikes clustered, slender, mostly 6-jointed, 4 cm. long; peduncle nearly suppressed; joints terete, 5 mm. long, 6-20-flowered, the flowers 4-ranked. Fruits subglobose, yellow, 4 mm. in diameter, with connivent tepals.
