Herbs monoecious (or entirely pistillate), erect, much-branched, rounded, bushy, 0.5-6 dm. Stems mostly ascending, terete. Leaves: petiole 0.3-2 cm; blade 10-50 × 5-25 mm, base varying from shortly hastate to truncate or cuneate. Staminate flowers in small to moderate, axillary glomerules near ends of branches, or in bracteate terminal spikes. Pistillate flowers in axillary clusters. Fruiting bracteoles lanceolate or oblong, 5-14(-20) mm, sharply lobed to tuberculate at base, also often sharply cristate below usually attenuate apical lobe; tips widely recurved-spreading. Seeds brown, 1.2 mm. Flowering Apr-Aug. Valley bottoms, silty or clay, less commonly, sandy alluvium with greasewood; 1200-1500 m; Nev.

Plant: Annual 1-4 dm; stems much-branched from base, faintly striate, green, glabrous to sparsely fine-scaly Leaves: blades 10-40 mm, lanceolate to deltate, fleshy, brittle, base tapered to hastate INFLORESCENCE: Staminate inflorescence: spike or spheric cluster; bracts 0; Pistillate inflorescence: bracts in fruit 5-20 mm, fused at base, lanceolate to triangular, smooth or tubercled, base often ± hastate Flowers: Staminate flower: calyx lobes 3-5; stamens 3-5; Pistillate flower: calyx ± 0; ovary ovoid to spheric, style branches 2 Fruit: Seed ± 1 mm, brown, erect Misc: Saline soils, meadows, flats; < 1500 m.; Apr-Aug