Subshrub, (15)20-30 cm high; glabrous, rarely papillose. Stem up to 1.5 cm thick, with grey, fissured bark; richly branched below and just above the base; woody branches erect, ascending or prostrate. Annual shoots erect, soon becoming woody and turning to milky white colour, almost unbranched, terminating in a narrow spike, or in upper part branched, the ascending laterals forming a compound, paniculate inflorescence. Leaves ascending, often + incurved, 5-15(20) x 1-1.5 mm, semi-terete or terete, often glaucous or purplish, indistinctly apiculate, basal constriction 0,5-1 mm long, axils with scattered, caducous hairs. Bracts leaf-like, (2)5-10(15) mm long, semi-terete, the lower longer than bracteoles and tepals, the upper as long as or shorter, often with ± clavate blade, incurved, at base sheathing with hyaline margins. Bracteoles cucullate, c. 1mm shorter than tepals, ovate or almost circular in outline, 1.3-1.5(2) mm long and wide, apiculate with a green, succulent, keeled back, only the lowermost sometimes longer and similar to upper bracts. Tepals ovate, firm, 2.5-3.2 mm long, the outer 1.5-2 mm wide, 5-veined, the inner 3(2)-veined, in upper half unveined, with wide hyaline margins, glabrous, apex broadly obtuse, crenulate, green blotch narrow triangular, transverse line at 1/2, glabrous. Anthers 1.5-2 mm long, linear, triangular or sagittate, divided up to 1/2; appendage minute, 0.2-0.3 mm long and wide, obtuse; filaments band-shaped, 2 x 0.5 mm; disc thick, with semi-circular, 0.5-0.6 mm long lobes, glabrous. Style thick, conical, 0.3-0.6 mm long; stigmas 2(3), 0.8-1.2 mm long, recurved, inside densely covered with short papillae, at the apex throughout so. Fruiting perianth 7-10 mm diam., wings overlapping, subequal, straw-coloured; tepals above the wings with a narrow thickened bulge evenly incurved to an open dome or erect, the utricle partially exposed; lower part of tepals forming a flat bowl-shaped structure, only the veins somewhat hardened, base flat with 5 shallow grooves. Seed 2-2.5 mm diam., horizontal.