Plants tight, compact mats, 1-3(-5) dm wide. Aerial flowering stems mostly erect, 0.1-2 dm. Leaf blades usually elliptic, 1-5 × 0.3-1.5 cm, densely tomentose abaxially, tomentose to floccose and greenish adaxially. Inflorescences umbellate; branches 4-20 cm. Involucres turbinate to campanulate, 3-8 mm. Flowers 3-7 mm, including 0.3-1 mm stipelike base; perianth bright yellow. 2n = 80.

Flowering Jun-Sep. Clayey or sandy to gravelly flats and slopes, mixed grassland and sagebrush communities, montane conifer woodlands, high-elevation sagebrush communities, subalpine or alpine conifer woodlands; 500-3200 m; Alta., Man., Sask.; Colo., Mont., Nebr., N.Dak., S.Dak., Wyo.

Variety flavum is widespread and rather common on the short-grass prairies of the Great Plains from Alberta, southwestern Manitoba, and Saskatchewan south through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and eastern Colorado, westward across the plains and into the mountains of Montana and Wyoming. It occasionally is cultivated and, while slow-growing, it will, given time, form nice mats, with a fair profusion of inflorescences bearing bright yellow flowers.