Shrubs, forming relatively tall mounds or upright, 25–300 cm. Stems: branchlets ascending to divaricate, green to grayish green or yellowish green during at least 1st year, soon or tardily turning yellowish brown to orangish brown, slender to relatively stout, 0.5–2 mm diam.; bark of older branches dark gray; tips mostly strongly spinescent (except on new growth); usually glabrous, sometimes puberulent (especially near nodes). Leaves: stipules absent (var. spinescens) or triangular to subulate, fused basal portion usually thickened, darkened, glandular, free tips 0.2–1 mm; blade usually narrowly to broadly oblanceolate, sometimes narrowly elliptic, 3–17 × 1.2–6 mm, margins usually not, sometimes slightly and evenly, thickened, apex acute, sometimes minutely mucronate, mucro 0.1–0.4 mm, usually glabrous, sometimes sparsely to moderately puberulent. Inflorescences axillary, usually flowers solitary, rarely 2–3-flowered. Flowers: sepals 4–5(–6), narrowly ovate to ovate, 1–3 mm, equal or slightly unequal, tips not spinescent; petals 4–5(–6), narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate to oblanceolate, 4–9 × 0.4–1.5 mm; stamens 5–10, in 1 equal or 2 unequal series, ?longer opposite sepals?. Follicles 1 or 2, ovoid to broadly ovoid or broadly ellipsoid, 3–5 mm, moderately to strongly striate, glabrous.
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