Plants perennial, dioecious, forming dense cushions to 10 cm or more diam., with branching caudex, arising from taproot. Stems branched, 4-angled, 1-4 cm, glabrous; branches erect or ascending, thickly clothed with marcescent leaves. Leaves sessile; basal blades oblanceolate to obovate or elliptic, 3-5 × 1-1.5 mm, succulent, base cuneate, margins entire, apex acute or abruptly acuminate to obtuse, glabrous; cauline shorter. Inflorescences solitary-flowered in axils of foliage leaves; bract 1, foliaceous, ca. 1 mm. Pedicels 1-5 mm, glabrous. Flowers unisexual, 3-4 mm diam.; sepals 5, 3-veined, keeled, 2.5-3 mm, margins narrow, apex acute, glabrous or with sparse, short, glandular pubescence; petals absent; stamens 10, shorter than sepals; styles 3, erect, becoming outwardly curved, ca. 1 mm; staminate flowers with brownish, peglike, conspicuous nectaries alternating with and attached to base of stamens; pistillate flowers with well-developed but nonfunctional stamens and nectaries. Capsules straw colored, broadly ovoid, ca. 3 × 2 mm, ca. equaling sepals, apex obtuse, opening by 3 valves, each of which splits into 2; carpophore absent. Seeds 1, brown, broadly reniform with thickened rim, ca. 1.1 mm diam., finely verrucate. 2n = 26.
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