This is a mat-forming reddish-green plant with a crooked, creeping, hairless stem. It spreads to 16 inches wide with many creeping stems from a single taproot. Flowers are tiny. Leaves are lance-shaped. Sap contains a latex skin irritant.
Plants are without hairs. Seed capsules are over 2mm long. Stipules are not united. Leaves are opposite, somewhat asymmetric at their base and have smooth leaf margins.
Habitat
Dry scrub and woodland habitat in desert and plateau regions.
Flower Characteristics
The tiny blooms are cup-shaped with white-edged, scalloped appendages surrounding a ring of 25 to 35 staminate flowers around one pistillate flower.
Leaf and Stem Characteristics
The leaves are rounded, oval, or spade-shaped, smooth along the edges and generally coming to a point, and not much more than 3/10 inch in maximum length.
Fruit and Seed Characteristics
The ovary of the pistillate flower enlarges into a lobed fruit about less than 1 inch long which contains tiny seeds.
Seeds are tiny, less than 1/10 inch in size, ovoid, smooth to slightly wrinkled, and white.