Herbs, erect or decumbent, 0.5-6 dm; branches terete, fructiferous almost to base, scurfy when young. Leaves alternate, subsessile or proximal short petiolate; blade ascending, oblong, oblong-ovate, or lanceolate to elliptic, 5-40 × 2-10 mm, thin, base acute to obtuse, margin entire, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers of both sexes in small axillary glomerules, 5-merous. Fruiting bracteoles almost sessile, broadly cuneate, 2-5 × (2-)2.5-5 mm, united to summit, truncate at summit, sides smooth or obscurely tuberculate. Seeds light brown to amber, 1-1.5 mm. 2n = 36.

Although placed within the Atriplex argentea species complex by P. C. Standley (1916), this taxon appears more nearly allied to A. cordulata, differing mainly in leaf shape, round-ovate or deltoid-ovate to elliptic or lanceolate (not ovate to cordate-ovate), and markedly tuberculate faces of the fruiting bracteoles.