Subshrubs, 0.5-1.5 × 1-3 dm. Stems: caudex absent or sometimes spreading; aerial flowering stems 0.2-0.6 dm, tomentose to floccose. Leaves: blade elliptic, 0.3-0.7(-0.8) × 0.1-0.4 cm, densely reddish-brown-tomentose abaxially, tomentose to floccose adaxially, margins not revolute. Inflorescences 2-6 cm; branches tomentose to floccose. Involucres 2.5-3.5 mm, floccose to subglabrous. Flowers (1.5-)2-3.5 mm; perianth whitish red to pink, rose, or orange. Achenes 2.5-3 mm.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Gravelly to rocky volcanic or sandstone outcrops, sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper woodlands; 2600-3100 m; Calif., Nev., Utah.

Variety lapidicola is found infrequently in the southern mountains of the Great Basin from Inyo County, California, eastward across central Nevada (Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine counties) to western Utah (Juab and Washington counties). It approaches the more depauperate forms of var. simpsonii in habit and is difficult to separate from var. phoeniceum in western Utah. An expression possibly worthy of formal recognition with sparse, whitish tomentum and narrow, greenish adaxial leaf surfaces from White River Valley in central Nye County, Nevada (e.g., Harrison & Harrison 13211, BRY; Holmgren & Holmgren 8219, NY; Reveal 8331, NY; B. T. Welsh & K. H. Thorne 402 and 567, BRY), tentatively here assigned to var. lapidicola, is somewhat similar to var. simpsonii.