Shrubs 2-4 m tall, often 3- or 4-branched at base of stem. Old branches yellow-white, often longitudinally splitting and with brown stripes; herbaceous branchlets of current year gray-green. Leaves scale-like, 1-2 mm, with a brown mucro; ocrea united with leaf. Pedicel ca. 3 mm, jointed below middle. Flowers 2 or 3, at leaf axil. Tepals broadly linear, apex rounded, reflexed in fruit. Fruit yellow or red when young, becoming light yellow or light brown, ovoid, 1.5-2.5 × 1-2 cm. Achenes ellipsoid, strongly coiled, prominently 4-ribbed; bristles in 2 rows per rib, slightly flat and separate at base, denser and longer at summit, 2- or 3-forked above middle, divaricate, not including achenes. Fl. Apr-May, fr. May-Jun. 2n = 18*.

Desert sand dunes; 500-600 m. Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan].