[4] This is a perennial herb growing in clumps of leaves variable in size, shape, and texture above a woody caudex.

The leaves are 1 to 10 centimeters long, lance-shaped to oval, pointed or rounded at the tips, and hairy to hairless and waxy.

The inflorescence is a rough-haired raceme of nodding flowers with bright to deep pink, and occasionally white, petals up to 3 centimeters long.

In the Arctic, this plant provides valuable nutrition for the Inuit, who eat the leaves raw, boiled with fat, or steeped in water for tea, the flowers and fruits raw, and as a salad with meals of seal and walrus blubber.

[4][5] The leaves and shoots are edible,[6] tasting much like spinach, and is also known in the Canadian tundra as River Beauty.