Perennials; caudex branched, (thick, cespitose); densely pubescent, trichomes rays (appressed on leaves, ascending on pedicels and fruits), distinct, furcate or bifurcate. Stems several from base, decumbent to erect or ascending (unbranched), 1-2.5 dm. Basal leaves: (outer ones spreading, inner erect or ascending); blade ovate, often broadly so, 4-7 cm, margins repand to lyrate-lobed. Cauline leaves similar to basal, blade oblanceolate or narrowly oblong, reduced in size, (base gibbous). Racemes loose, (elongated). Fruiting pedicels (ascending to divaricate-ascending, sigmoid to nearly straight), 10-17 mm. Flowers: sepals lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 5.8-7.2 mm; petals (erect, sometime purplish or drying purple), narrowly oblong to oblanceolate, 7-10 mm, (not or weakly clawed). Fruits didymous, globose or subglobose, inflated, 10-13 mm, (papery, basal and apical sinuses deep); valves (retaining seeds after dehiscence), pubescent, trichomes ascending, appearing fuzzy; replum oblong to oblanceolate, as wide as or wider than fruit, apex obtuse; ovules 4 per ovary; style (4-)5-7 mm. Seeds plump, (suborbicular).

Flowering May-Jun. Sagebrush, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, limber pine communities on clay, or a mixture of shale fragments and clay; 2100-2900 m; Utah.

Physaria grahamii is difficult to evaluate due to the paucity of collections. The tentative recognition by N. H. Holmgren (2005b) is followed here.