It can be easily identified by its small size, dusty green leaves, very flattened growth pattern, and the white circular margin around the edge of its burgundy centered flowers.

It is one of four members of the former Chamaesyce genus that are native to the Santa Monica Mountains, in addition to three species that have been introduced there, most of which share to some degree or other the white margin on the flower.

It can be found in open fields, on roadsides, or anywhere where the ground is disturbed, including ornamental gravels in suburban yards, where it is considered as a weed.

The single female flower is at the center, with an elevated ovary pendant on a long stalk, which when fertilized and mature, bears a capsule fruit, and so the name "syce" ("fig").

Like most spurges, rattlesnake weed secretes an acrid, milky sap containing alkaloids poisonous to humans, with emetic and cathartic properties that may be misconstrued as curative.