Stems erect, intricately branched, mostly 1-3.5(-4.5) dm. Leaves: proximalmost blade linear to linear-lanceolate or linear-elliptic, mainly 5-25 × 1-4 mm, tapering to slender base, densely grayish scurfy. Staminate flowers mainly confined to distal axils. Fruiting bracteoles oblong-cuneate to obovate in profile, (1.8-)2-2.3 × 1.1-1.5 mm, terminal tooth reduced to mere cusp between larger lateral ones.

Flowering summer-fall. Saline areas growing with shadscale, seepweed, Russian thistle, fine-textured substrates; 2300 m; Colo.

While H. M. Hall and F. E. Clements (1923) understandably mixed the two varieties in the specimen citations, they were right in recognition of a rather remarkable difference in bract structure.