All parts contain copious white latex.
Plants start from cutting as erect stems but soon develop several heavy spreading branches. Twigs are encircled by distinctive leaf scars and branches have thin smooth to finely rough gray-brown bark. The plants tend to branch at the base, and both trunks and branches develop slender dangling aerial roots, which quickly thicken to become strong downwardly branched supporting roots which m may coalesce and eventually hide the original trunk. Spreading surface roots may also be formed. The shiny, leathery, broadly oval leaves are initially enclosed in a long pink papery scale which leaves a circular scar as it falls.