Annual herb c. 0.57–1.5 m. tall, bushy or straggling with many divaricate branches from the base upwards (small plants simple), stem and branches slender, terete, striate, thinly or in parts more densely furnished with whitish multicellular hairs, the older basal internodes finally glabrescent. Leaves lanceolate-ovate to elliptic, acuminate, those of the stem and main branches 5.5–15 × 2.9–5.4 cm. including the 0.5–1.8 cm. petiole, dark green and thinly rather long-pilose on the superior surface, paler and more densely and shortly pubescent beneath, subtruncate to cuneate at the base; leaves of upper part of stem and branches rapidly reducing in size. Inflorescences considerably elongating as the flowers open and finally up to c. 25 cm. long including the (to c.8 cm.) peduncle, solitary or paired in the leaf axils, up to 4–5 together at the ends of the stem and branches, simple or sometimes branched, axis thinly to densely pilose. Bracts lanceolate-ovate, 1–1.5 mm. long, membranous-margined, persistent, more or less thinly pilose, each subtending a single triad of one fertile and two modified bracteolate flowers. Bracteoles broadly deltoid-ovate, c. 2 mm. long, abruptly shortly acuminate with a short, sharp mucro formed by the excurrent midrib, broadly membranous-margined below, moderately pilose. Tepals 2.75–3.5 mm. long, oblong-ovate, broadly white-margined, 3-nerved in the green centre with the nerves confluent above to form a short, sharp mucro; outer 2 tepals slightly longer and broader, lanate chiefly about the base, the inner 3 lanate over most of the dorsal surface. Style short, c. 0.5 mm. long. Sterile flowers of 3 branches each bearing c. 5–8 hooked setae to c. 2 mm. long, not forming a dense “burr” or concealing the fertile flower. Fruit an ovoid, somewhat compressed capsule c. 1.75–2 mm. long, rupturing irregularly at the thin-walled base; seed c. 1.5–1.75 mm. in diam., circular, somewhat compressed, black, almost smooth, shining.
