Subshrub with taproot, 20-35 cm high or more, woody, branched, puberulent, with numerous leaf-opposed, up to 1.3 cm long spines. Leaves coriaceous, sessile, up to 14 by 5 mm, glabrous to puberulent, ovate to obovate, acutely serrate. Raceme reduced to a single flower at the base of a spine; pedicels 3-5 mm long, straight, patent, puberulent. Sepals green with hyaline margins, 0.7-1 mm long. Petals white, shorter than or equalling sepals, linear. Stamens 2 (median) with 4 linear nectaries, one on either side of each stamen. Ovary elliptic with very short style. Siliculae broadly elliptic to obovate, 3.5-6.5 by 2.5-3.8 mm, with narrow wing in upper third, narrowly and shallowly emarginate; style c. 0.3 mm long, just level with the top of the sinus or slightly exserted. Seeds wingless, red-brown, 2-2.5 by 1.1-1.5 mm.
Screes, stream-edges, etc., at lower altitudes along roadsides; 2750-3500 m.
Home