Shrubs ca. 1 m tall, much branched. Stem stout, tortuous, with gray-brown bark; epidermis splitting longitudinally; woody branches grayish white, straight or tortuous, apex without leaves, acuminate or spiny; herbaceous branchlets of current year glabrous, soon becoming lignified, spiny at apex. Petiole short, 1/6-1/3 length of blade; leaf blade green, broadly elliptic or obovate, 1.5-2.5 × 1-1.3 cm, both surfaces glabrous, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, margin entire or slightly crenate; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, membranous and pellucid in upper part, deeply cleft into 2 or 3 lanceolate or broadly lanceolate lobes; veins 2 or 3. Pedicel ca. 1 cm, jointed usually at lower 1/3 or below middle. Flowers dense in racemes at lateral branchlets of current year. Tepals 5, light yellow or yellow-red; outer tepals reflexed in fruit, ovate or narrowly ovate, ca. as long as above-joint portion of pedicel; inner tepals broadly elliptic or orbicular-cordate, 6-7 × 7-8 mm. Achenes light brown, shiny, trigonous-ovoid, smooth. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

Stony slopes, scrub, Juniperus stands, stony deserts; 700-1500 m. Xinjiang [Afghanistan, ?India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan].