Annuals, 5-40 cm; herbage spicy-scented. Stems erect or ascending, glabrous or puberulent. Leaves linear to narrowly elliptic, 10-60 × 0.5-5.5 mm, margins with 1-4 pairs of setae, faces glabrous or puberulent (dotted on margins with round oil-glands ca. 0.5 mm). Heads borne singly or in open, cymiform arrays. Peduncles 20-65 mm. Involucres cylindric. Phyllaries distinct, narrowly oblong to oblong-obovate, 3.5-6 mm (dotted with 0-2, subterminal oil-glands plus 0-3 pairs of submarginal oil-glands). Ray florets 5; corollas 4-9 mm. Disc florets 7-12; corollas 3-4 mm (weakly 2-lipped). Cypselae 2.5-4 mm, strigillose to short-pilose; pappi of 0-3 awns 3-4 mm usually with a shorter crown. 2n = 24.

Flowering Jun-Nov. Deserts, grasslands, pine-oak-juniper woodlands, shrublands; 1000-2000 m; Ariz., N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora).

Hybrids of var. subnuda and Pectis papposa var. papposa are known from southeastern Arizona. In northern Mexico, hybrids occur between P. filipes and other Pectis species.