Herbs, mostly erect, infrequently scapose, (0.5-)1-15(-20) × 0.5-3 dm, glabrous or floccose to tomentose, usually greenish, occasionally grayish. Stems spreading to erect, with or without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 4 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect to spreading, slender to stout, solid or hollow, occasionally fistulose, 0.3-4(-10) dm, glabrous or lanate to tomentose or floccose.  Leaves basal or sheathing up stem 0.5-4 dm; petiole 1-10 cm, glabrous or tomentose; blade oblanceolate to elliptic or ovate, 1-6 × (0.3-)1-4 cm, densely white-lanate or tomentose abaxially, tomentose to floccose or subglabrous to glabrous adaxially, margins plane or undulate-crisped. Inflorescences cymose, rarely umbellate or capitate, 2-100(-150) × 2-40(-80) cm; branches usually dichotomous, glabrous or tomentose to floccose or sparsely pubescent; bracts 3, scalelike, 0.5-3(-5) mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres 1 per node or 2-10 per cluster, turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, (2.5-)3-5(-7) × (1.5-)2-4 mm, glabrous, tomentose, or sparsely pubescent; teeth 5-8, 0.2-0.6 mm. Flowers (1.5-)2-4 mm; perianth white or yellow, sometimes pink or rose, glabrous or pubescent; tepals connate proximal 4, monomorphic, oblong to obovate; stamens exserted, 2-5 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown to brown, 1.5-3.5 mm, glabrous.

Several local groups of Native Americans in California used members of this species in a variety of ways. S. A. Barrett and E. W. Gifford (1933) and S. M. Schenck and E. W. Gifford (1952) reported the consumption of raw young stems that are rather moist and tasty, although there is a sour aftertaste. The Kawaiisu used the hollow stems (probably var. westonii, rather than var. pauciflorum) as drinking tubes and as pipes (M. L. Zigmond 1981). Zigmond reported also that the roots of var. pauciflorum are used as an infusion for coughs.

Members of Eriogonum nudum are food plants for the Bauer's dotted-blue butterfly (Euphilotes baueri), the Pacific dotted-blue (E. enoptes), the gorgon copper (Gaeides gorgon), and the Mormon metalmark (Apodemia mormo).