Annual herb, 20-40 cm high; stem short, erect, glabrous or pubescent; leaves thin, ovate-lanceolate, 4-8 x 2-4.5 cm, caudate-acuminate, finely serrate, pubescent on the veins beneath; base usually cuneate or rounded; petioles spreading, long, slender, usually exceeding the leaf-blade; flowers in axillary, short, sessile, spikes with many, pale green, hispid bracts; male flowers sessile, few, minute, bracts crowded, 1-2 flowered, longer than capsule, many nerved, ending in long, subulate, hispid teeth; tepals membranous, splitting into 4-valvate sepals; stamens 8 on a cocave receptacle, filaments free, anther cells divaricate often twisted; female flowers many, crowded in lower part of the spike; bracts small; tepals 3, minute, imbricate, ciliate; styles 3, filiform, laciniate, ovary 3-lobed, 3-locular, ovules 3, one in each cell, axile placenta; capsules oblong, cocci 3, very thin, glabrous, white, enclosed in persistent bracts; seeds globose, ovoid, nearly smooth.