Perennials, (5-)7-30(-35) cm; taprooted, caudex branches relatively short and thick. Stems erect (gray-green), moderately to densely gray-green-strigose (hairs white, stiff), eglandular. Leaves basal (persistent) and cauline (gray-green; petiole bases broadened or not, not thickened and whitish-indurate); basal blades linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 10-70 × 1-3(-5) mm, cauline little reduced for about ¹ / 2 - ³ / 4 stems, margins entire, faces moderately to densely strigose (hairs white, stiff), eglandular. Heads 1. Involucres 5-7(-9) × 10-16(-20) mm. Phyllaries in 2-3(-4) series, hirsute to villoso-hirsute, minutely glandular. Ray florets 25-60; corollas white to pink or bluish, 8-15 mm, laminae coiling. Disc corollas 3.8-5.7 mm. Cypselae 2.5-3 mm, (2-)4(-5)-nerved, faces densely strigoso-sericeous; pappi: outer sometimes of setae or bristles (to 0.5 lengths of inner), inner of 32-50 bristles.

Flowering May-Jun. Clays, clay-silts, and gravelly soils, saline, gypseous, and seleniferous, commonly in salt desert scrub, pinyon-juniper; 1300-2100 m; Ariz., Colo., N.Mex., Utah, Wyo.