A glabrous shrub up to 2 m high, densely branched.Twigs purplish or reddish-brown at first, later becoming greyish.Cataphylls 2 mm long, narrowly triangular-lanceolate, acute.Cataphyllary stipules 1–1.5 × 1–1.5 mm, broadly triangular-ovate, acuminate.Plagiotropic shoots (leafy or floriferous lateral shoots of limited growth, see Phyllanthus) and their leaves distichous.Petioles 3–4 mm long.Stipules 1.5 mm long, triangular-ovate to lanceolate, acutely acuminate, subentire, green with hyaline margins.Leaf blades 1.5–3.5(6) × 1–3(3.5) cm, ovate-elliptic to suborbicular, rounded or emarginate, truncate, rounded or wide-cuneate at the base, membranaceous, olive-green, grey-green or bluish-green above and paler beneath, sometimes reddish-brown tinged, edged or blotched with creamy-white, white with pale grey-green patches and/or small dark olive flecks, entirely white, white suffused with pink or else entirely reddish-pink; lateral nerves in 5–7 pairs, ascending, camptodromous, scarcely prominent above, slightly so beneath.Male flowers (1)2(3) per axil, 2–3 mm in diameter; pedicels 6–9 mm long, capillary; calyx lobes obtuse, green, tinged reddish; staminal column 1 mm high.Female flowers 0.7–1 cm in diameter; pedicels 3–9 mm long; calyx lobes 1–2 × 1–2 mm, accrescent to 3–4 × 4–5 mm, obovate-obdeltate, obtuse, rounded or retuse, green or grey-green, reddish-tinged, sometimes irregularly edged and/or streaked white or pale pinkish; ovary 1 × 1 mm, 3-lobed to subglobose, smooth; styles minute, ± conical, shortly bifid.Fruit 3 × 5 mm, somewhat depressed3-lobed, subglobose, ± smooth, greenish.Seeds c. 2.5 × 1.5 mm, ± smooth, greyish.