Shrubs 20-50(-100) cm tall, copiously armed. Stems much branched; branches grayish or whitish, erect, ascending, or prostrate; branchlets apically thorny; thorns 3-15 mm, inserted on nodes. Leaves subsessile, solitary on young branches, in fascicles of 2-6 on short shoots in older growth; leaf blade grayish, succulent, linear or subcylindric, rarely linear-oblanceolate, 0.5-3 cm × 2-7 mm. Flowers 1 or 2 on short shoots. Pedicel 5-10 mm. Calyx narrowly campanulate, 4-5 mm, irregularly 2-4-lobed, lobes sparsely ciliate. Corolla pale purple, funnelform, ca. 1.2 cm; lobes oblong ovate, 1/3-1/2 as long as corolla tube, not ciliate. Stamens slightly exserted; filaments sparsely villous above base. Fruiting calyx slightly inflated. Berry purple-black, globose, sometimes emarginate, 6-9 mm in diam. Seeds brown, ca. 1.5 × 2 mm. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Aug-Oct.

A fine-leaved, branched, drought-enduring shrub that is used in erosion control.

Saline deserts and sands, roadsides; 400-3000 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, N Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Xizang [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; SW Asia, Europe]