Plants 0.005-0.05 m, (dwarf), forming clones by rhizomes. Stems erect; branches yellow-green, yellow-brown, or gray-brown, glabrous; branchlets yellow-brown or red-brown, glabrous; branches and branchlets sometimes weakly glaucous. Leaves (marcescent but not skeletonized), stipules usually absent or rudimentary, rarely present on late ones; petiole (convex, or shallowly to deeply grooved, flat), 0.4-4.6(-5.5) mm, (glabrous adaxially); largest medial blade (2 pairs of secondary veins arising at or close to base, arcing toward apex) broadly elliptic, subcircular, or circular, 1.9-16.3 × 3-10.5 mm, 0.84-1.17(-2.53) times as long as wide, base rounded or convex, margins flat, entire, ciliate, apex retuse, rounded, convex, or acute, abaxial surface glabrous, adaxial highly glossy, glabrous; proximal blade margins entire; juvenile blade glabrous or puberulent. Catkins from subterminal buds; staminate subglobose, stout, or indeterminate, 3.3-18.5 × 2.5-12 mm, flowering branchlet 0.5-9 mm; pistillate moderately densely to loosely flowered (2-15 flowers), stout, subglobose, globose, or indeterminate, 4.5-35 × 2-17 mm, flowering branchlet 0.5-22 mm; floral bract brown, 1.6-2.8 mm, apex rounded or retuse, entire, abaxially sparsely hairy or ciliate, hairs usually wavy, crinkled or curly, rarely straight. Staminate flowers: abaxial nectary 0.5-1 mm, adaxial nectary narrowly oblong or oblong, 0.8-1.4 mm, nectaries distinct; filaments distinct or connate less than 1/2 their lengths, glabrous; anthers ellipsoid or globose, 0.4-0.6 mm. Pistillate flowers: abaxial nectary present or absent, adaxial nectary usually narrowly oblong or oblong, sometimes flask-shaped, 0.8-2 mm, longer than stipe; stipe 0.4-0.8 mm; ovary pyriform, glabrous or puberulent, (hairs in patches, especially on beak), beak slightly bulged below styles; ovules 7-17 per ovary; styles connate or slightly distinct distally, 0.5-1 mm; stigmas flat, abaxially non-papillate with pointed tip, or slenderly or broadly cylindrical, 0.28-0.6 mm. Capsules 3.8-8.3 mm.
Tundra and willow thickets along streams, sandy, saline coastal flats, beach cobbles, heath on wet slopes, snowbeds, scree and colluvial slopes, substrates from clay to coarse rubble, both calcareous and acidic; at elevations to 2,200 metres
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