An erect, ascending or scrambling, tufted annual herb, up to 1.8 m tall, although commonly much shorter, often branched, glandular-hispid when young; stems fibrous, up to 7 mm thick.Petioles 0.1–2 cm long.Leaf blades 2–14 × 0.5–4 cm, narrowly oblong-lanceolate to broadly elliptic-lanceolate, acute or subacute at the apex, cuneate or rounded at the base, serrate on the margins, thinly chartaceous, sparingly appressed-pubescent to subglabrous on both surfaces, 3–5-nerved from the base; lateral nerves in 6–12 pairs.Stipules 1–4 × 0.7–1.5 mm, lanceolate, entire.Inflorescences 2–11 cm long, with the peduncle up to 5 cm long; axes glandular-hispid; bracts smaller than the stipules, but otherwise resembling them.Male flowers soon falling; pedicels 1–2 mm long; buds 1 mm in diameter, pubescent; calyx lobes subequal, 1.5–2 × 1 mm, ovate-lanceolate, greenish; petals unequal, three of them 2 × 1 mm, spathulate, the other two 1.5 × 0.5 mm, narrowly elliptic, unguiculate, undulate, white; staminal column 2 mm high, free parts of filaments 0.5 mm long, anthers 0.5 mm long; pistillode c. 1 mm long, slightly 3-lobed.Female flowers 1–3 per inflorescence; pedicels shorter and stouter than in male flowers; sepals usually 6, very unequal, 1–2 × 0.5–1 mm, accrescent to 2–5.5 × 1–2 mm, ovate-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, more or less acute, glandular-hispid, yellowish-green; petals 1.5 × 0.7 mm, elliptic, subequal, white, soon falling; ovary c. 1 mm in diameter, subglobose, densely glandular-hispid; styles 0.5–1 mm long, white.Fruit 4–4.5 × 6–7 mm, roundly 3-lobed, echinate, evenly glandular-hispid, green.Seeds 3–3.5 mm in diameter, globose, grey or greyish-brown, sometimes mottled blackish, white-lineate.
