Plants brownish, brownish green, or grayish green, 10-60 cm, densely tomentose. Stems erect (rarely ascending), branched throughout; branches arcuate, ascending or spreading. Leaves usually remote, not overlapping, sessile; blade narrowly ovate, lanceolate, or oblong-linear, flattened, 3-20 × 1.5-3.5 mm, sericeous. Inflorescences spicate, or primary axis paniculately branched; 1-4(-5)-flowered in axils of bracts. Perianth segments densely tomentose or almost glabrate.

Flowering late summer-fall. Alkaline soils, deserts, semideserts, eroded mountain slopes, other marginal habitats; 0-1500 m; Calif., Nev.