An erect or semiscandent annual or perennial herb, or weak-stemmed sparingly-branched subshrub up to 3 m tall, but commonly much less, monoecious or dioecious; stem often reddish at the base with brownish-green or purplish-brown branches.Lead shoots and lateral shoots glabrous, scaberulous, papillose or evenly to densely whitish-puberulous, the hairs multicellular.Lateral leafy shoots (5)10–15(25) cm long, later co-axillary with short shoots and secondary lead shoots.Scale leaves c. 2 mm long, linear-subulate; stipules c. 2.5 mm long, narrowly lanceolate.Foliage leaves distichous; petioles 0.5–1 mm long; stipules 1–1.5 mm long, linear-lanceolate, reddish-brown with hyaline margins; blades 0.2–2.3 × 0.1–1.4 cm, suborbicular, obovate or elliptic, subacute to rounded or truncate, rounded to cuneate at the base, membranous to chartaceous, usually glabrous above and beneath, rarely somewhat papillose-puberulous along the midrib and main nerves, light yellow-green to bright blue-green or dark grey-green above, paler and somewhat glaucous beneath, margins slightly recurved and sometimes purplish-tinged; lateral nerves in 4–12 pairs, not prominent above, scarcely so beneath.Male flowers in few-flowered fascicles, usually with 1 female flower per fascicle in the more distal axils of the lateral shoots.Male flowers: pedicels 5–6 mm long, capillary; sepals 5, 1 × 1 mm, suborbicular-obovate, cream-coloured or whitish with a green midrib, sometimes pink-tinged; disk glands 5, minute, free, flat, petaloid; stamens 5, free, filaments 0.75 mm long, erect, anthers minute, horizontal, transversely dehiscent, yellow.Female flowers: pedicels (5)7–20 mm long, capillary, red; sepals 5(6), 1 × 0.75 mm, elliptic-ovate, yellowish-green, often reddish- or brownish-tinged; disk 0.75 mm in diameter, annular, flat, entire; ovary 1 mm in diameter, sessile, depressed-subglobose, smooth; styles 3, 0.5 mm long, free, spreading, bifid, stigmas curved.Fruit 1 × 2 mm, depressed 3-lobed to subglobose, smooth, pale green, sometimes reddish-tinged.Seeds 0.8 × 0.6–0.7 mm, segmentiform, light brown, with 10–12 rows of minute tubercles on the dorsal facet, and 9–10 concentric rows of tubercles on each ventral facet.
