Subshrubs cushion-shaped, glabrous or cottony in leaf axils. Leaves alternate, sessile, triangular-ovate, adaxially concave, leathery, base semiamplexicaul, margin membranous, apex subulate or pungent. Flowers solitary in leaf axils and usually 1-4-clustered at each annual branch apex, bisexual, with 2 bractlets. Perianth segments 5, free, in 2 whorls, 2 in outer whorl, 3 in inner whorl, twisted into a cone, lanceolate, adaxially concave, membranous, distinctly enlarged and becoming papery in fruit, without abaxial appendages, apex acute or acuminate. Disk cupular, with 5 semiorbicular, fleshy lobes. Stamens 5, inserted between lobes of disk; filaments complanate; anthers sagittate, apex with a mucronate appendage. Ovary ovoid, compressed; style terete, slightly longer than stigmas; stigmas 2, recurved or erect, linear. Utricle enclosed in perianth, ovoid or broadly so, abaxially convex, adaxially concave; pericarp membranous, adnate to seed. Seed vertical; testa membranous; embryo spiral or planospiral; perisperm absent.

Probably one highly variable species: C Asia, extending to China, Mongolia, and Russia; one species in China.