A desert shrub, with a pleasant smell like balsam, two to four feet high, with gray, woody stems, abruptly branching, armed with long, brown and gray thorns, and clothed with very small, silvery-gray leaves, downy and thickish. The flowers are curious in shape and color, with five, large, purplish-pink sepals and five, small petals, the two lower ones minute and reduced to glands. The pistil is dark red, the three stamens have green filaments and red anthers, the ovary is downy and prickly, and the downy buds are pale pink.

Crimson-beak- Krameria Grayi. FLAX FAMILY. Linaceae.