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Erect or ascending annual, 15–55(–100) cm. Stem slender to stout, simple or branched from the base upwards, glabrous or thinly hairy below, increasingly furnished above with long, multicellular, rather floccose hairs. Leaves long-petiolate, the petioles sometimes longer than the (5–)15–45(–60) x (4–)10–30(–40) mm, narrowly or broadly elliptic to rhomboid or spathulate, sometimes purple-blotched blade, obtuse to retuse, glabrous or thinly pilose on the main nerves of the lower surface. Flower clusters all axillary, 6–15 mm in diam., increasingly distant below, male and female flowers intermixed. Tepals 3, male and female ± similar, lanceolate to oblong or rarely narrowly spathulate, 3–6 mm, gradually or more abruptly narrowed to a long colourless awn. Stigmas 3. Capsule pyriform, c. 2.5–3.5 mm, with a short beak, circumscissile, obscurely wrinkled. Seeds faintly reticulate, lenticular or slightly longer than wide.