Spotted Spurge

Its stems are often reddish in colour and are covered in small, soft hairs (i.e. they are villous). The stems and leaves contain a milky sap (i.e. latex). The leaves are paired and borne on very short stalks (i.e. petioles) only 0.5-2 mm long. These leaves (3-12 mm long and 1-5 mm wide) are oblong, oval (i.e. elliptic) or elongated in shape with a rounded tip (i.e. obtuse apex). Their margins are entire or finely toothed (i.e. serrulate), particularly towards their tips. The upper leaf surfaces are green and sometimes bear a purplish or reddish-brown spot at their centre. The leaf undersides are pale green or greyish-green and both leaf surfaces are usually hairless (i.e. glabrous).

Tiny male and female flowers are grouped into small cup-like structures (i.e. cyathia). These relatively inconspicuous greenish or reddish cyathia are produced singly in the leaf forks (i.e. axils) and borne on stalks (i.e. peduncles) 1-2 mm long. Each cyathium consists of a small cup-like structure (i.e. involucre) 0.7-1 mm long with five minute teeth and four small white or pinkish petal-like appendages (i.e. glands) about 0.5 mm long. They also have four or five male flowers, each consisting of a single stamen, and a single female flower, consisting of a large stalked ovary. The tiny hairy capsules (about 1.3-2 mm long and 1-2 mm wide) have three compartments, each containing a single seed. The pale brown, grey or greyish-brown seeds (about 1 mm long and 0.7 mm wide) are four-sided or somewhat egg-shaped (i.e. ovoid) and slightly furrowed.

This species reproduces only by seed, which are dispersed by wind, water, vehicles, in soil and in contaminated agricultural produce.