Subshrubs, small, 10-30 cm tall, much branched. Old branches gray-yellow or brown-gray; branchlets slightly spreading, produced from old branches, greenish, slender, smooth. Leaves often 2-5 clustered, semiterete-linear, 5-10(-15) mm, unequal in length, slightly thickening toward upper part, fleshy, base attenuate, apex obtuse, ± arching when dry. Flowers solitary, axillary (mostly at apices of branchlets), 5-7 mm in diam. Pedicels 8-10 mm, slender; bracts ca. 10, broadly ovate, shorter than or ca. same size as calyx, mucronate, imbricate, closely contacting calyx. Sepals united at base, ca. same size as bracts. Petals revolute in bud, yellow, oblong-obovate, slightly oblique, ca. 5 mm, inside with 2 appendages in lower half. Stamens 15, free; filaments subulate. Ovary ovoid-orbicular or obovoid-orbicular; styles 3, rarely 4 or 5, 3-5 mm, longer than ovary, persistent. Capsule oblong, to 1 cm, 3-septicidal. Fl. unknown.

● Deserts. N Gansu, Nei Mongol, N Ningxia.