Perennial glabrous herb. Root slender-cord-like. Rhizome branched, woody, caespitose, giving rise to many flowering and sterile shoots. Stem glabrous, branched, woody, spreading-ascending and rooting at nodes, 8-30 cm high. Leaves opposite, sessile, simple, fleshy, braodly ovate or suborbicular, entire or sinuate, glandular, 4-36 x 4-25 mm. Inflorescence corymbiform compound, terminal, many flowered. Flowers bisexual, pentamerous, pedicel 2-4 mm long. Calyx 2-3 0.5-1 mm, lobes basally connate, lanceolate, acute, glabrous, glandular. Petals elliptic, lanceolate, acute, glabrous, pink or light purple, 4-6 x 1-2 mm. Stamens 10, in two whorls, basifixed, filaments nearly 1/3 adnate to petals, with blackish anther, 3-5 mm long. Carpels 2-4.5 x 0.5-1 mm, bulging in the middle and tapering upward and downward, style short, stigma indistinct, stipe 0.5-0.8 mm long. Nectar scales oblong, 0.5-1 mm long. Follicles erect, 3-6 x 1-1.5 mm. Seeds 7-14 per fruit, small, ellipsoid, brown with longitudinal striae, 0.8-1 x 0.2-0.4 mm.

Fl. Per.: April-October.

Type: Russia, Altai: “ad fl. Bolschaja Uba, Buchtorma et Kokoryo et ad lacum aureum, Teletzkoe Osero” (LE).

Grows between 2000-4000 m on rocks and crevices; Distribution: Russia, Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia, Zingiang, Xizang) Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.