Annual herb up to 100 cm tall, subglabrous or minutely puberulent on younger parts. Leaves narrowly elliptical to lanceolate, 1-11 cm long by 0.3-2.7 cm wide, narrowly cuneate at base, the apex subacute; submarginal vein weakly developed; petioles 2-15 mm long, winged. Sepals 4, rarely 5, deltoid, (1.3-)2-3.5 mm long, (0.5-)0.7-1.8 mm wide, glabrous or minutely puberulent. Petals yellow, elliptical, 1-3 mm long, 0.7-2 mm wide. Stamens usually as many as sepals, rarely more; filaments 0.3-0.7 mm long; anthers 0.5-0.7 mm long, 0.5-0.7 mm thick, shedding pollen directly on the stigma at anthesis. Pollen shed in tetrads. Disc slightly elevated, glabrous. Style 0.7-1.5 mm long; stigma globose, 0.4-0.5 mm thick. Capsule thin-walled, glabrous or puberulent, 3-16(-19) mm long, terete, pale brown, readily and irregularly loculicidal; capsule sessile or on a pedicel up to 6 mm long, often more or less nodding. Seeds pluriseriate in each locule of the capsule, free, brown with fine brown lines, ellipsoid-rounded, 0.3-0.5 mm long, 0.2-0.25 mm wide; raphe inconspicuous. Gametic chromosome number, 2n = 16. Flowers Jul-Nov; fruit Jul-Nov.

TAICHUNG: Campus of National Chung-Hsing University, Peng 6445. TAINAN: Chiali, Morimoto 53; Matou, Lai 18955.

Africa, tropical and subtropical Asia, China, through Malaysia to and throughout tropical Australia and New Caledonia. In Taiwan, rare, in wet places at low elevation.