Monoecious shrubs or trees: up to 8 m.

Branches: erect or ascending, with dense, terete when young.

Leaves: 1-2 mm., tenately whorled or opposite and imbricated, scale-like, appressed, ovate-rhombic, somewhat obtuse, with convex back marked by linear resin duct.

Staminate cones: terminal, sessile, erect, ovoid-oblong, with rounded scales.

Mature ovulate cones: 0.8-1.5 cm. In diam., nearly sessile, fleshy, subglobular or ovoid, brownish-red to tawny, glossy, with 6-8 scales.

Seeds: 3-8, free, oblong, ripening in summer of the second year.