Dioecious or rarely polygamodioecious, prostrate (rarely procumbent, to 50 cm high) shrub to 1.5 m diam.; branches angular or flattened, sometimes weakly ribbed, puberulent, often rooting at nodes. Leaves simple, sessile, angular-obovate to oblanceolate, 8–30 mm long, 4–9 mm wide, acute, rarely acuminate, sometimes tridentate, flat to revolute, usually with (1–)2(–4) irregular teeth mostly on distal half, coriaceous, viscid, sparsely puberulent to glabrous. Flowers solitary or paired, terminal; pedicels 3.5–7.5(–12) mm long; sepals 4–5(–7), linear-lanceolate, often unequal, 2–3 mm long, acute, viscid, caducous; stamens 8–10, longer than sepals; ovary glabrous, or pubescent near apex. Capsule (3–)4-winged, broadly oblong in outline, with undulate valves, 10–13 mm long, 8–10.5 mm wide, glabrous, wings c. 0.5 mm wide, extending from base to apex, crustaceous; seed lenticular, 2.0–3.0 mm long, black, dull, exarillate Flowers summer.
Wim, GleP, VVP, VRiv, GipP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT. Also SA, NSW. Largely confined in Victoria to the south-west (Penola-Dergholm area, Grampians, Lake Fyans) with outlying occurrences near Castlemaine, Avoca, Skipton, Camperdown and extraordinary disjunctions near Sale where very rare and in perhaps also in the upper Murray River area (represented by a single, 1883 specimen of uncertain provenance). Grows in low-lying, often winter-wet areas in woodland, low open-forest and grasslands on sands and clays.
