Herbs perennial, cushionlike. Stems 10--20 cm tall, stout or slender, densely white pubescent, glandular, or glabrous. Leaves sessile, ovate-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 3--4 × 1--1.5 mm, margin glabrous or ciliate, hard, midvein conspicuously raised, base nearly rounded, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary or few in (sometimes dense) cymes. Pedicel ca. 4 mm or less. Sepals (4 or)5, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, ca. 4 × 1.5 mm, herbaceous, 3-veined, base truncate, apex acuminate. Petals 5, ca. 1/2 as long as sepals, 2-cleft nearly to base; lobes linear or absent. Stamens (5--)8--10. Styles 3. Capsule shorter than persistent sepals, 6-valved. Seeds 2--8, suborbicular, smooth. Fl. Jun--Aug, fr. Jul--Oct. 2n = 18.

Scrub, montane meadows, stony areas, slopes, mossy areas, roadsides; 3000--5600 m. Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim].