Annual, more or less mealy, whitish, grey or greenish, 30-80 cm. Stems erect, branched, rather rigid, sometimes reddish. Leaves 1-7 x 0.3-4 cm., petiolate, the middle and lower ones rhombic, ovate or often oblong or lanceolate, the upper oblong-lanceolate to linear, cuneate, rarely subhastate, dentate-sinuate, the uppermost sometimes entire, all mealy below. Flower-clusters densely crowded and arranged in paniculately branched, elongated inflorescences, usually leafy at lower part. Perianth segments 5, keeled, hooded, scarious-margined, mealy, greenish, enclosing fruit or opened. Seeds 1.2-1.5 mm in diam., obtusely margined, very finely tuberculate, blackish (very rarely, brown seeds can be formed under unfavorable conditions). Fl. May-November.