Shrubs creeping or pulvinate, dioecious, small, 10-25 cm tall, spinose, profusely shortly branched. Branchlets strict, alternate, dark gray or gray-brown, smooth or longitudinally fissured, terminating in a spine. Leaves very small, alternate or fascicled on short shoots; stipules linear-lanceolate, subequaling petiole; petiole 1-2 mm, puberulent; leaf blade bright green, unicolored on both surfaces, obovate, obovate-elliptic, or oblong, very small, 5-10 × 2.5-6 mm, papery, glabrous or puberulent, lateral veins 2 or 3 pairs, inconspicuous, base broadly cuneate, margin sparsely acutely denticulate, apex obtuse or rounded, rarely acuminate. Flowers unisexual, broadly campanulate, 1.5-2 mm, glabrous, usually 2- or 3-fascicled in leaf axils of short shoots, shortly pedicellate. Drupe yellow or dark brown at maturity, obovoid-globose, 3-4.5 mm in diam., with 2 or 3 stones, base with cup-shaped persistent calyx tube. Seeds brown, shiny, oblong-ovoid, oblique, ca. 3 mm, abaxially with margined, narrow furrow extending over nearly whole length.

Rock crevices in subalpine and alpine zones; 2800-4000 m. SW Xinjiang [Russia].