Prostrate or ascending, spreading, annual herb or shrub, to 50 cm high and 30 cm wide. Leaves with 1 pair of leaflets; petiole flattened and leaf-like, 4–17 mm long, connate-perfoliate (opposite pairs joined at base and encircling stem); leaflets not succulent, oblong (tongue-shaped), 2–12 mm long, 2–4 mm wide, continuous with petiole and not articulated at base, rounded at apex. Pedicel 3–6 mm long in flower. Sepals 4 (somewhat unequal by one being larger), 2 mm long. Petals 3 (4), obovate, 2–2.5 mm long, slightly longer than sepals, yellow drying white. Stamens 6; filaments 1.5 mm long, not winged, slightly dilated at very base. Disc lobes 3; lobes free, wider than high. Ovary 3-angled, 3-celled, glabrous; stigma capitate, obscurely 4-lobed. Fruit 3-winged, 1-celled by abortion, 10–19 mm long, 16–18 mm wide, deeply emarginate at apex; pedicel 4.5–6 mm long; fruiting style 0.2 mm long. Seeds 1 (2) per fruit, fusiform, triangular in T.S., 6–7 mm long, covered with mucous hairs which expand on wetting.