Slender, erect, often short-lived shrub, to c. 1 m high, branches often waxy and/or reddish. Leaves produced singly or few together at nodes, sessile, erect, linear, 1–6 cm long, 1–2 mm wide, (but juvenile leaves to 10 cm long and 1cm wide, sometimes hastate), usually glaucous, thickish, margins flat or incurved. Flowers in axillary clusters, usually decurved; perianth segments 2-3 mm long, free almost to base, cream to greenish, female flowers elongating to c. 5 mm in fruit, with segments succulent, whitish-translucent. Nut ovoid to broadly ovoid, 3-4 mm long, more or less trigonous to triquetrous, smooth or wrinkled, black.
