It is an annual herb, erect or ascending, reaching 1.25 m in height or more in cultivation. Thick stem, usually much branched, and angular branches, glabrous or provided in the upper parts with sparse (or dense in inflorescence), ± crispy hairs. Leaves glabrous or hairy, very variable in size, long (up to 8 cm) petiolate, lamina broadly ovate, ovate-romboidal or broadly elliptic to lanceolate-oblong, emarginate to obtuse or acute at apex, base narrowly cuneate to attenuate, along petiole decurrent. Flowers green to crimson in globose racemes ± 4-25 mm in diameter, male and female flowers intermingled. Bracts and bractlets broadly ovate-deltoid or, bracteoles equal to or shorter than perianth. Fruit in the form of an ovoid capsule 2.25-2.75 mm, membranous, darkly wrinkled. Seeds 1-1.5 mm, black or brown, shiny, very weakly reticulate, lenticular.3