Perennial, mat-or cushion-forming rhizomatous herb with persistent old leaf bases. Stems up to at least 12 cm, intricately branched, puberulent, with numerous leaf-or bract-opposed, up to 1.2 cm long spines. Leaves coriaceous, sessile, up to 25 mm long, glabrous to sparsely puberulent, impari-(or rarely bi-)pinnate with 2-4 pairs of lobes, or undivided, acutely serrate or entire. Racemes axillary at the base of spines with 1-3 minute flowers, in fruit little elongating, to 5 mm long; pedicels 2-4 mm long, straight, patent, puberulent. Sepals green with hyaline margins, 1-1.5 mm long. Petals white, shorter than or equalling sepals, linear. Stamens 2 (median) with 4 shield-like nectaries, one on either side of each stamen. Ovary elliptic with very short style. Siliculae broadly to cordate in outline, 2.5-5 by 2-4 mm, with narrow wing in upper third, not or indistinctly narrowly and shallowly emarginate; style 0.5-1 mm long, stigma exserted from the sinus. Seeds wingless, dark brown, 1-2 by 0.5-1.3 mm.
Screes, wet open places, tussock grassland, heaths; 3100-4350 m.
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