Subshrubs cushion-shaped, 10-20 cm tall, surface rough. Woody branches tortuous, strongly branched, gray-brown; branchlets silver-gray; annual branches usually geminate at apex of branchlets, unbranched, light green or yellow-green, 1-2 cm, with 3 or 4 internodes. Leaves obliquely spreading, clavate, 3-5 mm, smooth, base slightly expanded, apex obtuse or acute; leaf axil cottony. Bractlets suborbicular, equaling or slightly longer than perianth, abaxially slightly fleshy and slightly keeled, adaxially concave, margin membranous, apex obtuse. Perianth subglobose, ca. 1.5 mm in diam.; segments broadly elliptic, abaxially with a distal, transverse, black-brown, winglike process in fruit, glabrous, apex inflexed. Disk cupular, fleshy; lobes triangular. Anthers ovate, base cordate, apex subobtuse. Ovary ovoid, smooth; style short; stigma black, 2-lobed. Utricle hemispheric, adaxially flat. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.

River bank terraces, clayey-rubbly or clayey-pebbly slopes. N Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].