A plant of C. prolifera consists of a number of blades or laminae linked by underground stolons which are fixed to the sandy substrate by rhizoids.

Like other members of the order Bryopsidales, each C. prolifera plant is an individual organism consisting of a giant single cell with multiple nuclei.

Chloroplasts are free to move from one part of the organism to another as a response to the level of light at any point and there is a network of fibrous proteins that facilitates movement of organelles.

[4] Even when derived from the same source, individual plants of C. prolifera show great variability of form and it has been shown that this is in part related to the level of light.

This may occur under conditions of stress with the entire cytoplasm undergoing gametogenesis and the original organism being left as a husk.