Plant: shrub or small tree; 2-5(-10) m tall; branches straight, slender, ascending Leaves: represented merely by a few alternate, widely spaced, soon deciduous, deltoid scales 1-2 mm long; stipules apparently absent; obtuse apically Inflorescence: cymes short, few-flowered, axillary, often several arising together from a single leaf axil; bracts numerous, minute, deltoid Flowers: perfect; sepals 1 mm long and wide, acute, firm, tending to persist after anthesis; calyx lobes 5, imbricate in bud, brown, deltoid, small; petals 5, distinct, imbricate in bud, oblong to narrowly obovate, greenish white to yellowish white, 3.5-4 mm long, longer than the calyx lobes; stamens 5, tending to persist at base of fruit, slightly shorter than the petals, the anthers obcordate; pistil of (3-)5 carpels on a short, thick gynophore, the style slender, columnar, long 2-3 mm long, with 5 erect, deltoid, adaxially stigmatic apical lobes, ca. 0.2 mm Fruit: capsules 15-33 mm long at maturity, the seed-bearing portion ellipsoidal. SEEDS 7-8 mm long, minutely papillose, winged, the body 3-3.5 mm long, the wing membranaceous, as wide as body and about as long Misc: Sonoran Desert, desert grassland, juniper, and chaparral communities, often calcareous (and perhaps gypsiferous) slopes, sometimes locally dominant; (350-)600-1600 m [(1100-)2000-5200 ft]; (Mar-)May-Aug(-Sep)