Shrubs 30-50 cm tall, much branched. Stem flexuous, short, stout; bark gray, splitting longitudinally into fibers; woody branches spreading, straight, without leaves at ends and spine-pointed; herbaceous branchlets of current year very short, soon becoming lignified, with leaves and flowers. Leaves clustered on old branches, gray-green to blue-green, orbicular or broadly ovate, 4-7 × 4-5 mm, both surfaces glabrous, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, base rounded or broadly cuneate, apex rounded or obtuse; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, 1-3 mm, membranous, cleft into 2 long teeth. Pedicel ca. 5 mm, jointed at middle or slightly above. Flowers 2-6 at leaf axil. Tepals 4, pink; outer tepals reflexed in fruit, ovate-oblong, 2-2.5 × 1.5-2 mm, ca. as long as above joint portion of pedicel; inner tepals orbicular-cordate in fruit, 4-5 × 5-6 mm, prominently reticulate-veined. Achenes light brown, shiny, broadly ovoid, ca. 3.5 mm, smooth. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

Deserts, roadsides, sandy steppes, stony slopes; 300-1500 m. Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia].