Herbs, spreading, annual, 1-3(-5) dm, floccose and scabrellous, greenish to reddish or reddish brown. Stems: caudex absent; aerial flowering stems erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.5-1.5 dm, floccose and scabrellous. Leaves basal, sheathing up stems 1-3 cm; petiole 1-4(-5) cm, floccose; blade cordate, 1-3(-4) × 1-3(-4) cm, densely white-tomentose abaxially, sparsely floccose and greenish to green adaxially, margins crisped and wavy. Inflorescences cymose, open, spreading, 5-40 × 20-100 cm; branches scabrellous; bracts 3, scalelike, 1-1.5 × 0.4-0.9 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres horizontal, turbinate, 1.5-2.5 × 1.5-2 mm, scabrellous; teeth 5, erect, 0.4-0.6 mm. Flowers 1-1.5 mm; perianth white with greenish midribs, becoming pink to rose or deep red, pustulose; tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl obovate, those of inner whorl ovate; stamens exserted, 1-1.5 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes light brown to brown, 3-gonous, 2 mm, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Flowering Sep-Nov. Clayey to gravelly washes, flats, and slopes, saltbush, blackbrush, and sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper woodlands; 1400-2300 m; Colo., N.Mex., Utah.

Eriogonum scabrellum is widely scattered along the Colorado and San Juan river systems. It occurs from Grand Valley of Utah (Grand County) and Colorado (Mesa County), southward to the Lake Powell region of Utah (Garfield and Kane counties), and then to the Four Corners area of Utah (San Juan County), Colorado (Montezuma County), and New Mexico (San Juan County). It recently was collected in Chaco Canyon National Park in New Mexico, and just south of the town of Green River in Emery County, Utah.