Perennial herb, with woody caudex and taproot, several–stemmed at base, branches prostrate to widely spreading or trailing, in range < 20 cm tall; shoots with only cauline leaves, pubescent with closely appressed, 2–armed (T–shaped, malpigheaceous) hairs, the arms to 1 mm long.
Stems ridged, slender, < 1.5 mm diameter, with 3 ridges descending from each leaf, tough, yellow–green.
Leaves helically alternate, simple, petiolate, with stipules; stipules 2, attached to base of petiole, ± awl–shaped, 0.7—1.5 mm long, membranous and short–ciliate on margins; petiole channeled base–to–top, to 3 mm long; blade obovate or elliptic to oblanceolate or oblong–oblanceolate, < 10—35 × < 5—12 mm, dull, tapered and slightly asymmetric at base, entire, obtuse to rounded at tip, 3–veined at base with principal veins raised slightly, arms of hairs parallel with long axis.
Inflorescence racemelike, axillary, of unisexual flowers, the lowest flower pistillate + 3—6 staminate flowers, proterogynous on each raceme, bracteate, pubescent with T–shaped hairs; axis forked at each node; bractlet of staminate flower persistent and spreading on short pedicel, awl–shaped, 1—1.5 mm long, of pistillate flower awl–shaped, ca. 1.5 mm long, colorless, short–ciliate on margins; pedicel at anthesis < 0.5 mm long increasing to 2.5 mm long and thicker in fruit.
Staminate flower radial, 3.5—4 mm across; calyx 5–lobed, to 2.4 mm long, with T–shaped hairs on lower (outer) surface; tube short; lobes overlapping in bud, somewhat unequal, ovate–lanceolate to triangular, ca. 0.5 mm wide; petals 5, clawed, ca. 3 mm long, > calyx, limb lanceolate, whitish or greenish with green vein, essentially glabrous; nectary glands 5, opposite calyx lobes, ascending, fingerlike, ca. 0.7 mm long; stamens 8—9, fused into short column, to 1.2 mm long, with 5 stamens in lower whorl, column green, free filament < 0.4 mm long; anthers versatile, dithecal, 0.25 mm long, pale yellow to yellowish green, longitudinally dehiscent (several days after pistillate flower); pollen pale yellow (greenish); pistil absent.
Pistillate flower radial, 2 mm across; calyx 5–lobed; tube cuplike, < 0.5 mm long increasing 2× in fruit; lobes oblanceolate to lanceolate, at anthesis overlapping bases, acut, ca. 3.2 × 1.2—1.9 mm, with minute glandular teeth below midpoint, 3–veined with midvein raised on lower surface, lower surface pubescent; petals usually 5, linear, to 1.3 × 0.2 mm, colorless with green vein; nectary glands 5 in whorl opposite calyx lobes, fingerlike, ± 0.7 mm long, whitish, irregularly tapered from wide base; stamens absent; pistil 1, erect, at anthesis ca. 1.5 mm long; ovary superior, 3–lobed, 0.6 × 0.6 mm, surface hidden by dense cover of T–shaped hairs, 3–chambered, each chamber with 1 ovule; styles 3 forked at midpoint, the branches spreading, pale green aging reddish, with several stiff, erect hairs in center of styles; stigmas flared to crest–shaped.
Fruit capsule, pointing downward and away from stem, loculicidal, 3–seeded, 3–lobed, 3.7—5 × 5 mm, schizocarpic by dehiscing along septa and splitting from persistent central axis into 3 segments with persistent valve, covered with upward–pointing, stiff hairs to 1.2 mm long; styles persistent, 3 each 2–forked at midpoint, yellow–green with red stigmas at tips, with several erect, crescent–shaped hairs in center at base of styles.
Seed subspheroid, 2.3—2.5 mm, brown to pale brown, elaborately sculptured with each set of outgrowths ribcagelike (pectinate).
A. C. Gibson