Annual or short-lived perennial herb, glabrous or glabrate; stems prostrate or decumbent, rooting at the lower nodes, sparingly branched; roots rather slender. Lvs on main stems and branches similar; petioles short or lvs subsessile. Lamina to 15 × 4 cm, lanceolate, often with dark markings above, entire or minutely serrulate, glabrous or sometimes with appressed hairs on midrib above and below, copiously dotted with glands below; margins appressed-ciliate; base cuneate to rounded; apex acuminate. Ochreae c. 1.5 cm long, green or pinkish, obliquely truncate, not flared towards apex, long-ciliate. Fls 1-4 in whorls forming simple or few-branched, terminal or axillary racemes; racemes erect or slightly curved, 1.5-8 cm long, sometimes very slender and whorls distant, sometimes wider, cylindric, and densely flowered; peduncles slender, > upper lvs; pedicels enveloped or slightly exserted from bracts; bracts truncate, ciliate or glabrous. Perianth 2-2.5 mm long, deep pink to whitish, eglandular, accrescent; segments ± elliptic, imbricate. Nut 1.7-2.5 mm long, biconvex to almost plano-convex, blackish, ± glossy.