Herbs diffuse, 10-30 cm. Stems ascending, slender, much branched, angled, glabrous, when old often reddish brown. Leaves in pseudowhorls of 3-5 or opposite; petiole short or leaves subsessile; leaf blade lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-4 cm × 2-7 mm, base attenuate, apex acute or acuminate; midvein prominent. Inflorescences terminal or in seemingly leaf-opposed lax cymes; peduncle slender. Pedicel 1.5-6 mm. Tepals 5, greenish, elliptic or orbicular, 1.5-2 mm, veins reaching 2/3, margin membranous. Stamens 3. Ovary broadly elliptic or rotund, 3-loculed; styles 3, linear, short. Capsule subglobose, ca. as long as persistent tepals, 3-valved. Seeds numerous, chestnut-colored, reniform, tuberculate. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Oct. 2n = 18*, 36.

In past Chinese literature, this species was erroneously reported as Mollugo pentaphylla Linnaeus.

This species is used medicinally.

Open waste places, sands of seashores, farmlands; 100-1800 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [tropical and subtropical Asia].