Plants to 30-150 cm tall. Roots black-brown, stout. Older branches much branched, yellow-white to gray-brown, usually fissured; annual branches gray-green, slightly papillate, with numerous axillary, dwarf, single-internode branches; dwarf branches 3-8 mm, basally articulated, caducous. Leaves obliquely spreading, straight or somewhat arcuate, 4-10 × ca. 1 mm, base contracted, apex acute. Bractlets basally connate. Perianth segments erect, herbaceous, prominently veined, margin membranous, apex subobtuse; wing light yellow, broadly ovate to suborbicular, unequal, membranous, longitudinally veined. Seed 1-1.2 mm in diam.; embryo yellow-green. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

This species provides forage in desert and semidesert areas; sheep and camels eat the annual branches.

Slightly saline-alkaline deserts, arid slopes, ravine sides, alluvial fans. NW Gansu, Ningxia, N Qinghai, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia].