Robust erect monoecious softly pubescent apparently annual herb up to 90 cm.. Hairs multicellular, white.. Orthotropic stem subterete, greenish. Plagiotropic shoots up to 15 cm. long, often somewhat 2-winged, the older ones co-axillary with secondary orthotropic shoots.. Cataphylls linear-lanceolate, 2 mm. long, reddish purple with narrow white hyaline margins. Cataphyllary stipules narrowly lanceolate, auriculate on one side at the base, 2 mm. long, coloured as the cataphylls but for the white auricle.. Leaves of the plagiotropic shoots subdistichous; petioles 1–1.5 mm. long; blades elliptic-obovate, obovate-oblong or elliptic-oblong, (1.3–)2–4 cm. long, (0.6–)1–1.8 cm. wide, subacute or obtuse at the apex, rounded or rounded-cuneate at the base, firmly membranous, lateral nerves 6–8 pairs, not prominent above, scarcely so beneath, sparingly softly pubescent above and beneath, bright green above, pale glaucous-green, sometimes suffused purplish beneath.. Stipules linear-filiform, 2.5 mm. long, white with a median strip of reddish purple.. Male flowers up to 4 per axil in the most proximal axils of the plagiotropic shoots, ♀ 1(–4) per axil in the median and distal axils.. Male flowers: bracts resembling the stipules; pedicels 1–1.5 mm. long; sepals 6, the 3 outer obovate-elliptic and obtuse, the 3 inner elliptic-oblong and subacute or obtuse, all 1.5 mm. long, 0.75 mm. wide, subglabrous without, glabrous within, hyaline but for the yellowish-green midrib; disc-glands 6, free, papillose; stamens 3, the filaments united into a column 0.5 mm. high, anthers sessile, 0.3 mm. long, longitudinally dehiscent.. Female flowers: pedicels 2 mm. long, extending to 3 mm. in fruit; sepals 6, elliptic, 1.5–1.8 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, accrescent to 2–2.5 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide in fruit, sparingly pubescent without, glabrous within, white with a median green stripe; disc acetabuliform, 6-lobed, the lobes minutely tuberculate; ovary shortly stipitate, subglobose, 0.8 mm. diameter, smooth; styles 0.3 mm. long, ± free, divaricate, shortly bifid.. Fruit oblate-spheroidal, 1.5 mm. long, 2 mm. diameter, smooth, brown.. Seeds 1 mm. long, with 6–7 longitudinal ridges on the dorsal facet, and 5–6 shallow concentric ridges on each ventral facet, and with numerous faint transverse striae between the ridges, uniformly light brown.
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