Erect or ascending perennial herb, to c. 1.5 m; stem and branches striate, rather succulent, sulcate when dry, furnished rather sparsely (or more densely in the young parts and about the nodes) with fine, multicellular hairs. Leaves variegated, from purplish with pink veins to green with yellow veins, orbicular to ovate-orbicular, shortly cuneate to truncate at the base, mostly deeply retuse at the apex (sometimes merely rounded), succulent, 2-6 cm long, on the lower surface sparingly furnished with short, frequently golden-glistening hairs; petioles to c.2 cm. Flowers dioecious, sessile, in many-flowered, much-branched panicles up to c. 20 cm long, panicles leafless or the branches subtended by much reduced leaves. Bracts and bracteoles small, subhyaline, deltoid-ovate, ±acute, c. 1 mm, glabrous. Perianth segments oblong, obtuse or subacute, 1-1.25 mm, 3-nerved, glabrous (but lanate hairs often occurring at the axis between the tepals and the bracteoles). Ovary globose, shorter than the stigmas, style almost none. Capsule not seen.

Type: cultivated material, England, origin R. Plate (K, holotype!).

Habitat and distribution: A decorative species, cultivated in Pakistan as elsewhere in the tropics; a native of tropical S. America.