细枝木蓼 xi zhi mu liao

Shrubs dwarf, much branched. Stem short, stout, flexuous, with gray-brown bark; epidermis splitting longitudinally; woody branches short, stout, flexuous, apex obtuse, without spines; herbaceous branchlets of current year slender, dense, glabrous, apex with leaves or flowers. Leaves green, lanceolate to linear lanceolate, 0.7-1.5 cm × 1-3 mm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, midvein prominent abaxially, base attenuate, margin slightly undulate, apex obtuse, with a short point; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, ca. 5 mm, membranous, pellucid, upper part cleft into 2 sharp teeth. Pedicel ca. 5 mm, jointed slightly above middle. Flowers sparsely arranged in terminal racemes of current year’s branchlets. Tepals 5, pink; outer tepals 2, reflexed in fruit, oblong-ovate, ca. as long as or shorter than above-joint portion of pedicel; inner tepals 3, broadly elliptic, 4-6 × 4-5 mm. Achenes dark brown, shiny, narrowly ovoid, trigonous, smooth, apex acuminate. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

Sandy steppes, deserts, roadsides; 600-1000 m. N Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].