Shrubs 30-50 cm tall. Old branches yellow-gray; herbaceous branchlets of current year grayish green; joints short, 1-2 cm. Leaves very small, ca. 1 mm, scale-like; ocrea united to leaf. Pedicel red, short, 1-2 mm, jointed at base. Flowers 1 or 2, at leaf axil. Tepals reflexed in fruit, red. Fruit ellipsoid, small, 7-9 × 6-8 mm. Achenes narrowly ellipsoid, coiled, prominently 4-ribbed; bristles in 1 row per rib, yellow, shorter than width of achenes, stiff, flat and enlarged at base, separate or somewhat united, 2- or 3-forked from middle, spiniform. Fl. and fr. Jun-Jul.

* Stony slopes; ca. 1400 m. Xinjiang.