Subshrubs cushion-shaped, 8-12 cm tall. Woody stems strongly branched; branchlets gray-white; annual branches usually geminate at apex of branchlets, unbranched (or with a branch of only 1 internode), light green, terete or slightly sulcate, 1-3 cm, with 2-4 internodes and dense, papillate processes. Leaves horizontal or obliquely spreading, linear, semiterete, 4-8 mm, with papillate processes, base slightly expanded and decurrent, apex subobtuse, mucronate; leaf axil cottony. Bractlets of same shape as leaves but shorter, usually ca. 2 × as long as perianth. Perianth subglobose, 1.5-2 mm in diam.; segments broadly elliptic, abaxially slightly keeled in fruit, tuberculate thickened distally, with a transverse, black, winglike process, adaxially cottony near base, margin membranous, apex inflexed. Disk discoid, fleshy; lobes semiorbicular or obscure. Anther ovate. Style very short; stigma black, capitate, 2-lobed. Utricle hemispheric, adaxially convex. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.

Sunny slopes. S Xinjiang [E Kazakhstan].