Plants perennial, acaulescent or rarely with short branched aerial caudices, cespitose. Leaves: petiole 1-3.5 cm; blade linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 1.5-8 × 0.3-0.4 cm, 5 or more times as long as wide, margins entire, plane, surfaces glabrous or puberulent. Inflorescences: bracts broadly ovate to ovate-elliptic, 7-11 × 2-8 mm, thinly papery, glabrate to minutely glandular-puberulent; flowers 12-25. Perianth: tube greenish pink, 3-8 mm, limb pale pink, 3-4 mm diam. Fruits winged, ± obdeltate in profile, 6-9 × 5-8 mm, scarious, apex slightly beaked; wings 5, thin walled, apex tapered to broadly obtuse, without dilations, cavities extending throughout .

Flowering fall. Shrubby gypsum hills; of conservation concern; 1500-2000 m; N.Mex.