Plants 30-90 cm; self-incom-patible. Stems usually simple, often zigzag-curved, ± hirsute, long-soft-hairy, ± glandular. Leaves mostly alternate, 2-8 cm (often longest at midstems), hirsute, ± long-hairy, ± glandular. Heads usually (3-10+) in dense, cymiform arrays. Peduncular bracts oblanceolate, 3-9 mm (flat, flexible, margins thickened or rolled, hirsute to hispid, usually bristly, especially margins, ± glandular), apices rounded, tack-glands usually 3-6+, confined to margins. Phyllaries 4-6 mm, abaxial faces spreading-hairy (hairs mixed, short, slender hairs and longer bristles), densely glandular, tack-glands usually 0. Paleae 4-6 mm (tack glands usually 0). Ray florets 1-4; corollas yellow, white, or rose, tubes ca. 2 mm (papillate, throats often with red 'eyes'), laminae 5-6 mm (central lobes slightly narrower than laterals, nearly symmetric, widest beyond middles, sinuses usually ³/4+ laminae). Disc florets 2-10; corollas yellow to white or rose, ca. 5 mm. Ray cypselae ca. 2.5 mm, usually rough-wrinkled, glabrous or glabrate. Disc cypselae ca. 2.5 mm, ± appressed-hairy; pappi 6-8 usually lanceolate-aristate (often 1-3 shorter, blunt) scales 2-5 mm. 2n = 14.

Flowering spring-summer. Open, dry meadows, fields; 100-1500 m; Calif.

Calycadenia mollis grows in the Sierra Nevada foothills from Tuolumne County to Tulare County.