Herbs, perennial, 10-15 cm tall. Branches dichotomous from stem base. Leaves sessile; leaf blade shortly linear to narrowly elliptic, 3-9 × 1-3 mm, thickly papery, grayish green, with scattered oil glands, margin denticulate. Flowers terminal, solitary. Sepals ovate, to 1 mm, basally connate, margin ciliate. Petals yellow, oblong, 7-8 × ca. 3 mm, with scattered semipellucid oil glands, margin irregular. Staminal filaments flattened in ± their basal half, with trichomes. Ovary 4- or 5-carpelled; style ca. 2.5 mm; stigma slightly enlarged. Capsule 4- or 5-carpelled, with oil glands; carpels ca. 5 mm in diam., 1-seeded. Seeds reniform, 2-2.5 × ca. 1.5 mm; seed coat shrunken. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

Townsend (Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 40: 35, t. 3902. 1986) placed Haplophyllum tragacanthoides in synonymy of H. dauricum (Linnaeus) G. Don.

● Dry hill slopes; ca. 1500 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia.