Plants dioecious (rarely monoecious). Stems 3-10(-15) dm, becoming reddish brown with whitish ribs exfoliating in strips, older bark dark gray. Leaves of main stems 1-2.5(-4.2) cm × 1.5-6(-10) mm; blade green, apex often whitish. Staminate flowers: perianth segments ± enclosing stamens, 1.5-2 mm; filaments shorter than anthers. Pistillate flowers: stigma protruding through opening in covering formed by accrescent bracts. Fruiting bracts wholly connate, sessile, orbicular to broadly elliptic, 7.5-14 × 6-12 mm, base often abruptly cuneate and stipelike, margins entire, apex retuse, glabrous; wing somewhat thickened near margin, yellowish green, whitish, or pink to red-tinged, smooth, glabrous. Utricles brown, 1.5-2 mm. 2n = 36. Flowering spring-summer. Valleys, foothills, dry, alkaline or scarcely alkaline soils, sagebrush, shadscale, and creosote bush communities; 500-2400 m; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo. Grayia spinosa is rarely a codominant. Its fruits are still present through July.

Plant: Shrub generally < 1 m, generally dioecious; hairs simple or scaly; stem: branches many, stiff; bark straw-colored to gray; twigs becoming spine-like Leaves: 5-35 mm, generally elliptic to oblanceolate, flat, entire, tapered to short-petioled INFLORESCENCE: Staminate inflorescence spike-like, terminal, 7-18 mm; bract ± leaf-like; flowers < 8 per axil; Pistillate inflorescence ± spike-like, axillary or terminal, 6-18 cm in fruit; bracts 3-10 mm, ± leaf-like; bractlets 2, 7-15 mm, fused, together sac-like, ± round, flat, winged, white to red-tinged Flowers: Staminate flower: calyx lobes 4; stamens 4; Pistillate flower: calyx 0; stigmas 2 Fruit: utricle, generally 2-3 mm; Seed 1, verticle or horizonal Misc: Sandy to gravelly soils, scrub, pinyon/juniper woodland; 500-2800 m.; Mar-Jun