Dioecious or sometimes monoecious delicate weakly and sparingly branched brittle glabrous or subglabrous shrub 1–1.5 m. tall.. Stems greenish.. Orthotropic shoots angular. Plagiotropic shoots (10–)15–30(–45) cm. long, angular, smooth or somewhat asperulous.. Cataphylls narrowly lanceolate, 1.5 mm. long, dark purplish brown with a narrow hyaline margin. Cataphyllary stipules narrowly triangular-lanceolate, 1 mm. long, acute, entire, dark purplish brown with a narrow hyaline margin.. Leaves of the plagiotropic shoots remotely distichous; petioles 1–2 mm. long; blades elliptic-obovate to oblanceolate-oblong, (1–)2–3.2 cm. long, (0.5–)1–1.4 cm. wide, obtuse or subacute, mucronulate or not, cuneate or attenuate, membranaceous, lateral nerves 9–13 pairs, not prominent above and scarcely so beneath, dark green above, paler beneath, sometimes reddening.. Stipules linear-lanceolate, 2 mm. long, aristate, entire, reddish with a narrow hyaline margin.. Male flowers 1–3 per axil, in the axils of the proximal half of the flowering shoots; ♀ solitary in the axils of the distal half.. Male flowers: pedicels 3 mm. long; sepals 6, elliptic, 2 mm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, obtuse to rounded, pale green; disc-glands 6, free, obovate-suborbicular, flat, smooth; sta-mens 3, filaments connate into a column 1 mm. high, anthers ± free, horizontally held, reniform, 0.3 mm. across, laterally dehiscent.. Female flowers: pedicels 3–5 mm. long, slightly thickened apically; sepals slightly larger than those of the ♂ flowers, otherwise similar; disc shallowly hexalobate, ± flattened, smooth; ovary trilobate-subglobose, 0.75–1 mm. diameter, smooth; styles 0.5 mm. long, ± united at the base, spreading, bifid to halfway, stigmas recurved.. Fruit depressed-trilobate-subglobose, 2 mm. long, 2.5 mm. diameter, smooth.. Seeds triquetrous, 1.5 mm. long, 1 mm. wide, with 8–9 shallow longitudinal ridges on the dorsal facet and 7 shallow concentric ridges on each ventral facet, slightly shiny, pale buff.. Fig. 3/8, p. 22.
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