Soils with high gypsum contents are prominent in many arid, semiarid, and subhumid regions worldwide. In order to increase communication about the nature of gypseous soil profiles, terms that precisely describe their morphology are needed. At the White Sands Missile Range and vicinity in southern New Mexico a soil survey is being made that contains large areas of gypseous soils associated with lacustrine and eolian deposits that range in age from middle Pleistocene to Holocene. Soil profile descriptions reveal several forms of gypsum in a variety of Aridisols and Entisols. For example, certain gypsum concentrations resemble flour, sugar, snow flakes, honeycomb, tuff, while others constitute petrogypic horizons and large selenite crystals. This paper describes the various forms of gypsum in the survey area and their relationship to the different soil types.