Plants annual, biennial, or perennial; taproot filiform to slender. Stems erect to ascending, much-branched distally, 5-20 cm, finely pubescent to puberulent. Leaves: stipules lanceolate, 3-8 mm, apex acuminate, entire; blade linear, 5-20 × 0.3-1 mm, leathery, apex minutely cuspidate, glabrous. Cymes terminal and lateral, 5-20+-flowered, dichasial and rather diffuse, forming clusters 3-15 mm wide. Flowers 5-merous, ± short-campanulate, with enlarged hypanthium and calyx widening distally, 2.4-3.2 mm, moderately pubescent proximately with antrorsely appressed to spreading hairs; sepals green to tan, midrib and lateral pair of veins absent to evident, oblong, 1.2-1.3 mm, leathery to rigid, margins whitish to translucent, 0.05-0.1 mm wide, scarious, apex terminated by awn, hood ± obscure, narrowly rounded, awn widely divergent, 0.6-1.3 mm, broadly conic in proximal 1/ 3 with white to yellowish, scabrous spine; staminodes subulate, 0.6-0.7 mm; style 1, cleft in distal 2, 0.4-0.6 mm. Utricles ovoid-oblong, 1 mm, smooth, glabrous. 2n = 64.
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