Stems often forming dense mats, 5-30+ cm, often obscured by stipules and dense pubescence. Leaves: stipules 1-8 mm, often nearly as long as leaves, lobes acuminate; blade 2-grooved, 5-13 mm, apex finely spinose, glabrous. Flowers densely woolly, hairs 0.5-1.5 mm; sepals 5, margins fimbriate, awn 1.5-4 mm; staminodes white, 0.3-0.5 mm. Utricles: apex apiculate. Seeds 1.4-1.6 mm.

Flowering spring-early summer. Sandy beaches, grassy bluffs, sand dunes; 0-200 m; Calif., Oreg., Wash.; Mexico; South America (Chile, Ecuador, Peru).

The flowers are burlike in fruit with the utricle enclosed in the rigid, persistent calyx, the presumed unit of seed dispersal.