The plants are small to medium halophytic shrubs with apparently jointed fleshy stems and scale-like leaves.

The young twigs are blue-green, fleshy, apparently jointed (articulated), with glabrous fine papillose surface.

The opposite leaves are fleshy, glabrous, connate basally and surrounding the stem (thus forming the joints), with very short scale-like triangular blades.

[3][4][5] The inflorescences consist of numerous opposite lateral cylindrical spikes, 15-30 × 2–5 mm, on jointed peduncles.

The erect seed is oblong and red-brown, containing the half-annular embryo and copious perisperm (feeding tissue).

The name had been introduced by Carl Anton von Meyer in 1838 (as "Halostachys caspia"), but without giving a genus description.

But this was problematic, as in 1866 Halostachys songarica and H. nodulosa had been transferred to the genus Halopeplis by Franz Ungern-Sternberg.

[6] The distribution area of Halostachys caspica reaches from Southeast Europe, Caucasus (Russia, Armenia, eastern Turkey), Southwest Asia (northern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan), Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Mongolia) to Xinjiang and western Gansu (China).

[5] Halostachys caspica grows under extreme ecological conditions, and is a good fodder plant for the sustainable development on salty soils.