Description from Flora of China
Echinospermum tenue Ledebour, Fl. Altaic. 1: 201. 1829.
Herbs annual. Stems slender, frequently branched above, 17-20 cm tall, spreading or appressed gray-green hispid; branches ascending. Leaf blade linear to linear-lanceolate, 1.5-3 cm × 2-4 mm, flat and erect, obtuse to ± acute, abaxially densely strigose, adaxially green, sparsely strigose. Inflorescences 4-6 cm in fruit; bracts linear, slightly longer than fruit. Fruiting pedicel 1-1.5 mm. Calyx 5-parted; lobes spreading, linear, ca. 2.5 mm, to 4 mm in fruit. Corolla light blue, ca. 3 mm, campanulate; limb 2.5-3 mm wide; lobes oblong, ca. 1 mm. Gynobase somewhat surpassing nutlets. Fruit ca. 2.5 mm; nutlets broadly ovoid, ca. 2 mm, adaxially granulose or smooth, glabrous or sparsely tuberculate at base; disc ovate, without keel, smooth or granulose; marginal glochids in a single row, 4-7 on each side, 0.6-1 mm, fine, free at base.
Sunny slopes, desert communities of Haloxylon ammodendron and Anabasis aphylla; ca. 1500 m. Xinjiang (N Zhungeer Basin) [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan].