Annual, erect 1-2 m high, unarmed, stout, greenish-purple, glabrous or puberulous herb; stem and branches grooved; younger parts clothed with soft hairs or glabrous; leaves broadly lanceolate to rhomboid or ovate, acute or acuminate, lateral nerves slender, prominent beneath; petioles as long as the lamina; flowers in axillary and terminal; spikes simple or in much branched or thyrsoid panicle; male and female flower interminxed; bracts acicular, recurved, subequal, longer than sepaloid tepals; sepals 5, lanceolate or oblong, green or more often red purple, mucronate and shortly awned; stamens 5, longer than tepals, filaments equaling the perianth lobes; utricles unceolate, pale green in lower half, purple in upper; seeds globose, yellowish white or whitish red.