Stems prostrate or spreading-ascending to erect, often reddish, terete, 0.7-2(-4) dm, scurfy. Leaves numerous, imbricate, all or mainly alternate, sessile; blade ovate or broadly so, (1-)4-10 mm, base rounded to subcordate, margin entire, apex acute. Flowers solitary or few in axils, staminate 4-merous. Fruiting bracteoles deciduous, rounded-deltoid, compressed, 2-3 mm and as broad or broader, somewhat hastately lobed at base and denticulate or crenulate, acute or acuminate at apex, sides smooth. Seeds reddish brown, 0.8-0.9 mm.

Flowering late summer-fall. Sandy saline substrates; of conservation concern; 20-60 m; Calif.

Atriplex parishii var. minuscula occurs with Distichlis spicata, Centromadia pungens, Suaeda moquin-tandonii, Spergularia macrotheca:, Frankenia salina, Sporobolus airoides, and other annual Atriplex species. Plants of this variety are sympatric with those of var. subtilis and evidently maintain their integrity even when growing together. This species shares morphologic features with A. cordulata, which suggests a relationship in that direction.