The bracteoles are scale-like, transverse-oval, with membranaceous margin all around, adjacent to the flowers, together with the bract forming a low cup.

The tube of the fruit is dish-like, narrowed to its base, with prominent ridges, at its bottom with flat, oval to round pits.

psammophilus, a shrub up to 2,5 m with shorter and thinner flower-bearing branches and longer upper leaves; and subsp.

[1][2] The species has been first described in 1833 by Carl Anton von Meyer as Salsola subaphylla (In: Karl Eduard Eichwald: Plantarum novarum vel minus cognitarum, 2, Leipzig, Voss, p. 34, tab, 24).

It grows in steppe, semideserts and deserts on stony, clayey or sandy ground, often on salty or gypsum soils, up to 2400 m above sea-level.

[1][2] Halothamnus subaphyllus is an important fodder plant of the grazed deserts of Middle Asia.

[3] As traditional medicine, Halothamnus subaphyllus is used for women's diseases, for strengthening of the hair, and against scabies of sheep.