Dioecious perennial cushion-forming herb with flowering stems up to 10 cm., arising from caudicles borne on a stout woody stock.. Stems monomorphic, definite, slightly flattened, asperulous-papillose or subglabrous.. Leaves distichous, subsessile (petiole up to 0.5 mm.); blades elliptic-ovate to broadly ovate or suborbicular-ovate, 4–10 mm. long, 2.5–8.5 mm. wide, acute, subacute or obtuse, mucronate, entire, marginally thickened, rounded to shallowly cordate, firmly chartaceous, lateral nerves 4–8 pairs, craspedodromous, slightly prominent above, fairly prominent beneath, glabrous, green with the margins reddish.. Stipules linear to narrowly linear-lanceolate, 1–2 mm. long, sparingly fimbriate-laciniate to subentire.. Male flowers solitary, geminate or ternate in axils along the entire length of the flowering shoots, the females solitary, usually in the basal or median axils.. Male flowers: pedicels 6–8 mm. long; sepals 5–6, oblanceolate-spathulate, 3 mm. long, 1–1.5 mm. wide, subacute, somewhat cucullate, white or pale greenish white, often pink tinged; disc-glands (4–)5–6, free, usually ± discoid, sometimes somewhat irregularly shaped, shallowly verruculose; stamens 3, filaments connate to form a stout column 2 mm. high, anthers sessile, free at the apex, 4-lobed, vertically-held, 1 mm. long, longitudinally dehiscent.. Female flowers: pedicels 4–7 mm. long, apically thickened, not elongating in fruit; sepals 6, elliptic-ovate, 3 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, accrescent to 4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide in fruit, subacute, obtuse or rounded, pinkish with scarious margins; disc ± annular or shallowly 6-lobed, thick, fleshy, supporting the ovary; ovary sessile, 6-lobate, 1.2 mm. diameter, smooth; styles ± free, ± 1 mm. long, slender, erect, bilobed, the stigmas tightly coiled back.. Fruit depressed-subglobose, 2–2.5 mm. long, 4 mm. diameter, slightly roughened, brown.. Seeds triquetrous, 2 mm. long, with 15 longitudinal ridges on the dorsal facet, and 10 concentric ridges on each ventral facet, with innumerable transverse striae between the ridges, pale ochreous olive-brown.. Fig.3/1.
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