Herbs, typically erect. Stems simple or more commonly branched throughout, mainly 2-8(-10) dm, branches mostly obtusely angled; herbage scurfy, becoming glabrate. Leaves alternate or proximalmost opposite, short petiolate proximally, sessile and often cordate-clasping distally; blade ovate to deltoid or oval, 4-30(-40) × 3-30 mm, base truncate or subhastate to rounded, margin entire or dentate, apex acute to obtuse. Flowers in axillary glomerules. Staminate flowers in glomerules mainly in distal axils; sepals 3-5. Fruiting bracteoles scarcely compressed, 2-3 mm and as wide, apex truncate to broadly rounded, with 3 (or more) teeth across summit, surfaces smooth (or rarely tuberculate). Seeds brown, 1-2 mm wide. 2n = 18.

Flowering summer-fall. Saline saltgrass-greasewood-rabbitbrush communities, and other pans or palustrine or lacustrine habitats; 400-2700 m; Alta., B.C., Sask.; Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.