Herbs, erect, forming rounded clumps. Stems mainly 0.5-4(-5) dm; stems usually branched from base, terete, stout, angled; herbage scurfy. Leaves alternate or proximalmost subopposite, short petiolate or distal ones sessile; petiole 2-5 mm; blade cordate-ovate or subreniform to ovate to deltoid-ovate or oval, mainly 6-40 × 4-30 mm, base truncate to subcordate or broadly cuneate, margin entire or in some subhastately lobed or sometimes undulate-dentate, apex acute to rounded. Staminate glomerules in distal axils or in short, naked, terminal (early deciduous) panicles; flowers with 5-parted calyx. Pistillate flowers usually in fascicles of 1-3 in proximal axils. Fruiting bracteoles monomorphic or dimorphic, larger ones on stipes (2-)4-8(-15) mm, others sessile, united at base, round-triangular or suborbicular, 4-6 mm, irregularly and coarsely dentate and with ± densely beset with flat, cristate, or hornlike appendages, smaller bracteoles (lacking or rare in var. asterocarpa) in same axils, oblong to cuneate, 3-4 mm, apex truncate, dentate only at summit, faces smooth. Seeds brownish to whitish, 1.5-2.3 mm. 2n = 18.
Mat-atriplex, shadscale, greasewood, and pinyon-juniper communities, on fine-textured saline substrates; at elevations from 1,100-2,200 metres.
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