Perennials; (compact); caudex branched; densely (silvery) pubescent, trichomes (sessile or short-stalked), 5-8-rayed, rays distinct, furcate or bifurcate, (umbonate, tuberculate and the center less so). Stems several from base, erect or outer ones decumbent, (unbranched, stout, usually sparsely leaved), 1-3 dm. Basal leaves: blade linear, 2-7(-10) cm, margins entire, repand, or shallowly dentate. Cauline leaves (sessile); blade (erect), spatulate to linear, (1-)2-3(-4.5) cm, margins entire, sometimes involute, (apex acute or subacute). Racemes dense, (exceeding basal leaves). Fruiting pedicels (spreading, sharply sigmoid), 8-15 mm. Flowers: sepals ovate or oblong, (4.5-)5-6(-7) mm, (lateral pair subsaccate, cucullate, median pair thickened, cucullate apically); petals spatulate, 7-9(-11) mm (widened at base, slightly retuse). Fruits (sessile or substipitate), ovate to oblong, not compressed at distal margins or apex, 5-9 mm; valves sparsely pubescent, trichomes appressed; ovules 4-8 per ovary; style 3-5 mm. Seeds flattened. 2n = 16, ca. 20.

Flowering May-Jun. Shale bluffs, limestone hillsides, gypseous knolls and ravines, calcareous substrates, grasslands and pinyon-juniper communities; of conservation concern; 1400-2100 m; Colo., N.Mex.