Annual herb to perennial woody subshrub, 15 cm to 2 m tall; stem erect, to 1 cm diameter at base, red-brown, pubescent, scurfy, scabrid or glabrous above. Leaf blade rhombic to broadly or narrowly elliptic or ovate, 3-lobed to 1/2–3/4-way to base, rarely entire, 2.5–11.5(–17) cm long, 2.5–8(–10.5) cm wide, apex acute, rarely shortly acuminate, base cuneate to obtuse, 1–2-serrate-dentate, the tips of the proximal teeth replaced with black crater-like glands, subglabrous or more often subscabrid to thinly pubescent above, often deeply pubescent beneath; petiole terete, 1–4.5(–7) cm long, thickly pubescent; stipules narrowly elliptic to linear, to 4 mm long, 1 mm wide, black, falling early. Inflorescence terminal, 1–4-branched, (5–)10–35 cm long, nodes with reduced leaves becoming more linear and smaller towards the top, internodes 1.5–4 cm, each with 1–6 leaf-subopposed cymes; peduncles 2–3 mm long, each bearing (1–)3(–5) flowers; bracts as stipules 1–3.5 mm long; pedicels 1–2 mm long. Sepals narrowly elliptic to linear, 8–9 mm long, sparsely stellate-hairy outside, apical spine 0.25–0.5 mm long, conspicuously red in bud. Petals spathulate, 5–7 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide, basal 1 mm hairy. Stamens (14–)15; ovary sparsely hairy. Fruits 3–20 per node, indehiscent, globose, 5–7 mm diameter (fruit body 3–5 mm), densely covered in long white hairs, with ± 120 patent, glabrous or rarely subglabrous, dark brown spines, each with a translucent, forward directed recurved hair at the tip. Fig. 13/1–5.