Plants mainly 8-20 dm, and as wide or wider; twigs stout or slender, striately angled, sometimes bluntly spiny. Petiole 2-4 mm. Pistillate flowers borne in panicles 5-20+ cm. Fruiting bracteoles orbiculate to subreniform, mainly 1.3-3.8 × 2-4.6 mm. Seeds 1-1.7 mm wide.

Flowering spring-fall. Mesquite, creosote bush, greasewood, rabbitbrush, shadscale, saltgrass, saltbush, and blackbrush communities, mainly in saline substrates; 500-2000 m; Ariz, Calif., Nev., Utah.