It is native to the southwestern United States from eastern California to western Colorado, where it grows in brush, woodland, and dry mountain slope habitat.

The leaves are oppositely arranged on the spreading stem branches.

Each fleshy leaf has an oval or rounded blade up to 7 to 9 centimetres (2+3⁄4 to 3+1⁄2 in) long and is hairless or sparsely hairy.

The flowers occur in leaf axils on the upper branches.

Five to nine flowers bloom from a cup-shaped involucre of several partly fused bracts.