A glabrous shrub up to 3 m. Cataphylls triangular-lanceolate, 2 mm long, their stipules broadly triangular. Leaves closely-set on the lateral shoots. Petioles 2-3 mm long. Leaf-blade elliptic, elliptic-ovate or broadly ovate, 1-2.5(-3) x 0.7-1.5(-2) cm, subacute or obtuse, rounded or cuneate, membranous, lateral nerves 3-5 pairs, not prominent. Stipules triangular-lanceolate, 1.5 mm long, acutely acuminate. Male flowers fasciculate in the axils of the proximal 1/3 of the leafy shoots, females solitary in those of the distal 2/3; male bracts smaller than the stipules, otherwise resembling them. Male flowers: pedicels 2-3 mm long, capillary: calyx 2 mm across at the widest point, the inflexed lobes transversely-ovate to suborbicular; staminal column 1 mm high, truncate at the apex. Female flowers: pedicels 1 mm long, thicker than in the male flowers; calyx-lobes ovate-suborbicular, 1 mm long, scarcely or only slightly accrescent in fruit, shortly acutely acuminate; ovary hemispherical, 1.25 mm diam., truncate at the apex, smooth; styles minute, shortly bilobate, inflexed. Fruit ovoid-subglobose, 5 mm diam., smooth, often shiny, red, containing 3, 2-seeded pyrenes.

Fl. Per.: October (cult.).

Type: The figure in Breyne, J. (1678), ‘Exoticarum aliarumque minus cognitarum plantarum centuria prima’ (8. t. 4)!.

Distribution: India (E. & S. from the Gangetic Plain) eastwards to Formosa, the Ryu-Kyu Is., the Philippines and W. Malesia, where it gives way to Breynia cernua (Poir.) Well. Arg.