It is native to the deserts of eastern California, western Arizona and northwestern Mexico, where it grows in scrub and other habitat.

It is a rounded clumpy subshrub made up of many rough-haired, erect stems up to a meter tall.

The cylindrical stems are lined evenly with linear to widely lance-shaped leaves 1 to 2.5 centimeters long.

The inflorescence at the end of each stem is a raceme of many small five-petalled white flowers surrounded by rounded or oval bracts with pointed, lobed, or notched tips.

This article about plants of the order Cornales is a stub.