Small to medium annual or perennial, stemless or shortly caulescent, branched herb; branches short, congested, up to 10 cm tall, densely covered with adpressed woolly grey hair. Leaves numerous, 3-6 cm long, 4-18 mm broad, lanceolate-spathulate to obovate-spathulate, apices hardened, narrow-rotundate, below rotundate-cuneate to cuneate, narrowed to short petioles; margins entire to sometimes minutely denticulate, teeth ± obtuse, covered densely with long white to greyish hairs. Scapes 1-7 cm long, thick, decumbent to ascendent to sometimes arcuate, densely villose; spike 1-2 cm long, usually dense, ovoid to ellipsoid, sometimes short cylindrical with lax flowers towards the base. Bracts 3-5 mm long, concave, ovate, ± obtuse, margins ciliate, dorsally covered with long hairs, keel broad. Anterior sepals obovate-spathulate, up to 3 mm long, 2.5-2.7 mm broad, margins at the upper part ciliate, keel broad, posterior elliptic obovate, nearly as long as broad, uniformly ciliate. Corolla lobes 1.5 mm long, spreading acute, exterior surface hirsute, corolla tube broader in the upper part. Seeds 2.5-2.7 mm long, yellow to greyish-brown, ellipsoid, shining.
Distribution: North Africa and south-west Asia.
