Erect monoecious glabrous annual herb up to 90 cm.. Orthotropic stem angular, purplish or greenish. Plagiotropic shoots up to 16 cm. long, angular, the older ones co-axillary with weak secondary orthotropic shoots.. Cataphylls linear-lanceolate, 2.5–3 mm. long, minutely denticulate, ± concolorous, sometimes replaced by foliage-leaves. Cataphyllary stipules narrowly obliquely lanceolate, 3 mm. long, with a greenish-brown midrib and paler margins.. Leaves of the plagiotropic shoots distichous; petioles 1 mm. long; blades narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 1–3.7 cm. long, 0.25–0.75 cm. wide, obtuse or subacute at the apex, rounded-cuneate at the base, firmly membranous, lateral nerves 6–10 pairs, not prominent above or beneath, indistinct.. Stipules linear-lanceolate, 1.5 mm. long, subentire.. Male flowers solitary or geminate in the axils of the lower third of the plagiotropic shoots, ♀ solitary in the axils of the upper two-thirds.. Male flowers: pedicels 0.5–0.7 mm. long; sepals 6, obovate-suborbicular, ± 1 mm. long and broad, rounded, white with a pale greenish midrib; disc-glands 6, small, free, rounded, flat, minutely papillose; stamens 3, the filaments united into a short column 0.2 mm. high, anthers subsessile, horizontally held, cordate, 0.3 mm. across, transversely dehiscent.. Female flowers: pedicels 1 mm. long, extending to 2 mm. in fruit; sepals 6, elliptic, 1.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, white with a median green band; disc thin, flat, 6-lobed; ovary subsessile, roundly 6-lobate, 0.8 mm. diameter, smooth; styles 0.3 mm. long, free, adpressed to the top of the ovary, bifid, stigmas recurved.. Fruit depressed-rounded-trigonous, 1.5–2 mm. long, 2.5 mm. diameter, ± smooth, yellowish brown.. Seeds 1.5 mm. long, sharply triquetrous, pale yellowish brown, with 9–10 longitudinal rows of minute transversely lineate reddish-brown tubercles on the dorsal facet, and 11–12 ± concentric rows of such tubercles on each ventral facet.
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