Shrubs 50-100 cm tall. Old branches light gray; herbaceous branchlets of current year gray-green, jointed; joints 1-3 cm. Leaves linear, 2-3 mm; ocrea united to leaf. Pedicel 3-4 mm, jointed at middle. Flowers 1-3, at leaf axil. Tepals reflexed in fruit, dark or light red, broadly elliptic. Fruit red-brown or light red when young, brown or yellow-brown when mature, subglobose, broadly ellipsoid or ellipsoid, 1-1.5 × 1-1.4 cm. Achenes ellipsoid or broadly ellipsoid, coiled, 8-11 × 3-5 mm, with ribs and deeply canaliculate; ribs broad, each with 3 rows of bristles, rarely 2 rows. Bristles of margin rows dense, enlarged at base, flat, slightly united or not, thick, stiff, often ca. as long as or shorter than width of achenes, 2- or 3-forked from middle or above; apical branches spreading, short, acute. Fl. May, fr. Jun-Jul.

One of us (Grabovskaya-Borodina) regards this as a synonym of Calligonum litvinovii Drobow (see Borodina, Rast. Tsentral. Azii 9: 122–130. 1989).

* Mobile or semimobile sand dunes, stony deserts; 1000-1500 m. Gansu, ?Nei Mongol, Xinjiang.