Staminate plants usually taller, less robust than pistillate plants. Stems 0.2-6 m. Leaves: petioles 2-7 cm. Leaflet blades mostly 3-9, linear to linear-lanceolate, 3-15 × 0.2-1.7 cm, margins coarsely serrate; surfaces abaxially whitish green with scattered, yellowish brown, resinous dots, strigose, adaxially darker green with large, stiff, bulbous-based conic hairs. Inflorescences numerous. Flowers unisexual, often transitional flowers and flowers of opposite sex developing later. Staminate flowers: pedicels 0.5-3 mm; sepals ovate to lanceolate, 2.5-4 mm, puberulent; stamens caducous after anthesis, somewhat shorter than sepals; filaments 0.5-1 mm. Pistillate flowers ± sessile, enclosed by glandular, beaked bracteole and subtended by bract; perianth appressed to and surrounding base of ovary. Achenes white or greenish, mottled with purple, ovoid, somewhat compressed, 2-5 mm, with ± persistent perianth that sometimes flakes off. 2 n = 20.