Plants 10-25 cm tall. Stems branched from base; branches decumbent, gray-brown, with longitudinal fissures; annual branches dense, whitish, slender, easily broken. Leaves undeveloped, tuberculate, base decurrent, semiamplexicaul, apex obtuse-rounded; leaves of branchlets narrow and obconic at base. Spikes terete, ovoid, or subglobose, 3-8 × 1.5-3 mm. Flowers 3 per bract. Perianth top surface flattened in fruit, pentagonal. Seed subovoid, 0.7-1 mm in diam.; testa red-brown, densely papillate. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

Saline and alkaline mud flats, salt-lake shores. Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].