Perennial herb forming low, cushion-shaped clumps from an intricately branching, subterranean caudex; herbage silvery-gray, covered with a crust of flattened, stellate hairs; hairs usually with 5 main rays, each twice bifurcate into 20 tips, rays somewhat fused near the center by a thin, narrow webbing; stems crowded, buried among and not exceeding the leaves; leaves linear-oblanceolate, 3-8(13) mm long, 0.7-1.4 mm wide; flowers and fruits in dense, few-flowered racemes, not or barely exceeding the leaves; pedicels straight to slightly sigmoid; sepals 4, yellow-green, 3.7-4.8 mm long; petals 4, deep yellow, spatulate, 5.2-6.5 mm long; fruits slightly inflated silicles, ovate, glabrous, reddish at maturity; styles 1.8-3 mm long in fruit; seeds suborbicular-ovoid, 1.5-2.4 mm long, 1.3-1.9 mm wide, strongly mucilaginous when wetted. Flowers in May.