Herbs annual, (6-)12-40(-60) cm tall, glabrous or distally pilose on sepals, pedicels, and fruit. Stems erect, branched, glabrous. Basal leaves subsessile or attenuate to a petiolelike base; leaf blade oblong or spatulate, (1.5-)3-6(-12) × (0.3-)0.5-1.5 cm, base attenuate, margin sinuate-dentate or subentire, apex obtuse. Middle cauline leaves sessile; leaf blade oblong or linear-lanceolate, (0.5-)1-4(-6) cm × 2-10(-20) mm, glabrous or sparsely crisped hairy, base auriculate-amplexicaul, margin entire, apex acute. Fruiting pedicels filiform, deflexed, 2-5 mm, conspicuously thickened and subclavate at apex, white crisped hairy. Sepals oblong, 0.8-1.5 × 0.4-0.7 mm, crisped hairy. Petals yellow, oblong-oblanceolate, (1-)1.5-2 × 0.4-0.8 mm, base attenuate, apex obtuse. Filaments 1-1.5 mm; anthers ovate, 0.1-0.2 mm. Fruit spatulate or oblanceolate, usually curved at locule, 0.8-1.4(-1.5) cm, 2-4 mm wide at apex, glabrous or pubescent with crisped trichomes, base and middle not winged, somewhat corky, apex distinctly winged, emarginate; locule 4-6 mm; wings 3-5 mm wide. Seeds light brown, narrowly oblong, 2.5-3 × 0.6-0.8 mm. Fl. and fr. May-Jun. 2n = 42*, 34.

Deserts, steppe, roadsides; 300-700 m. Gansu, Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; SW Asia].