Herbs annual, (0.5-)2-12(-17) cm tall. Stems erect to ascending, simple, slender, flexuous, densely pubescent with short-stalked to subsessile stellate trichomes, usually glabrous distally. Basal leaves not rosulate, soon withered. Cauline leaves 3-12, obovate, elliptic-oblong, or lanceolate, (0.2-)0.5-2(-3) cm × (1.5-)3-8(-10) mm, pubescent on both surfaces with short-stalked, 4-rayed, stellate trichomes, sometimes adaxially with primarily simple trichomes mixed with fewer, forked or stellate ones, cuneate to attenuate into a petiolelike base to 5 mm, margin entire or denticulate, apex obtuse or acute. Racemes (2-)4-10(-15)-flowered, ebracteate, lax and elongated in fruit. Fruit-ing pedicels (1-)3-10(-18) mm, ascending, straight, glabrous or pubescent all around with subsessile, 3- or 4-rayed stellate trichomes, slender. Sepals oblong, 0.9-1.4 × 0.4-5 mm, erect, abaxially pubescent with simple trichomes sometimes mixed with fewer forked ones, base of lateral pair not saccate, margin not membranous. Petals white, narrowly spatulate, 0.6-1 × 0.1-0.2 mm, apex obtuse or subretuse; claw absent. Filaments 0.7-1 mm; anthers ovate, to 0.1 mm. Ovules 10-18(-22) per ovary. Fruit oblong, oblong-elliptic, or rarely suborbicular, (2-)4-8 × (1-)2-3(-4) mm, latiseptate, not twisted; valves puberulent with exclusively subsessile stellate trichomes, or with a mixture of stellate, forked, and simple trichomes, rarely only sparsely ciliate at margin, base and apex obtuse to rounded; style obsolete. Seeds blackish, ovate, 0.7-0.9 × 0.5-0.7 mm, slightly compressed, wingless. Fl. and fr. Jun-Oct.

Scree slopes, streamsides, woods, pastures, alpine ledges, meadows, scrub; 3100-5200 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim].