Silkkitähkät

Subshrubs or shrubs up to 2 m (much smaller at higher altitudes). Stem and leaves covered with stellate hairs often turning fulvous when dry. Leaves alternate, short-petiolate, entire, linear, oblong or ovate, basally cuneate to slightly cordate, green. Flowers unisexual (plants monoecious); male flowers agglomerated in dense spike-like inflorescences that terminate the branches, perianth hyaline with 3–5 almost free segments covered with stellate but easily caducous indumentum, stamens 3–5; female flowers positioned below the male ones, enclosed by a cover consisting of two at least halfway fused accrescent bracts with long simple hairs and much smaller stellate hairs. Styles 2. Fruits with hyaline, very thin pericarp covered with scattered stellate hairs. Seeds ~2.0 mm with thin seed coat, perisperm abundant. Embryo vertical, horseshoe-shaped. One species in the deserts of Eurasia and North America. According to recent investigations (Heklau and Röser 2008), the genus comprises one species.