Bassia iranica (Litvinov ex Bornmüller) Bornmüller; Kochia iranica Litvinov ex Bornmüller; K. odontoptera Schrenk var. altera Schrenk.

Herbs annual, to 50 cm tall, densely gray-white cottony pubescent. Stem erect, woody below, usually with crowded branches; branches irregularly spreading, whitish yellow or reddish purple, rigid. Leaves sessile, semiappressed villous, base attenuate, apex acute or shortly acuminate; lower leaves linear to oblong-lanceolate, to 1.8 cm; upper leaves ovate to oblong, 1.5-3 × 1-2 mm. Flowers bisexual, usually 2 or 3 per axillary glomerule. Perianth green, densely pilose; winglike appendages rhombic to fan-shaped, membranous, brownish yellow veined, apical margin erose. Stigmas 2, exserted, filiform. Style very short, ca. 1/4 as long as stigma. Utricle ovoid; pericarp thinly membranous. Seed dark brown, not lustrous, ca. 1 mm in diam., glabrous; perisperm coherent, brown. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

Plants with perianth segments rhombic, narrowed at base, and not erose at margin correspond to Kochia stellaris s.str., whereas plants with perianth segments orbicular, erose at margin, have been segregated as K. iranica. The difference between these two entities is problematic.

Gobi desert. W Gansu, Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Pakistan; C Asia, SW Asia (Iran)].