Plants 10-30 cm. Stems erect to ascending, green when young, soon reddish to brownish, branched, glabrous or tomentose, stipitate-glandular. Leaves mostly erect or ascending; blades spatulate (flat), 15-30 × 3-7 mm, midnerves (and sometimes 2 fainter, collateral nerves) evident (slightly raised abaxially), apices obtuse, mucronate, faces glabrous or tomentose and/or stipitate-glandular ; axillary fascicles absent. Heads (12-22) usually in (leafy) congested, cymiform or racemiform arrays, rarely borne singly . Peduncles usually less than 20, rarely to 100 mm (leafy). Involucres broadly campanulate, 8-12 × 12-15 mm. Phyllaries 18-28 in 2-3 series, green to tan, lanceolate to elliptic, 10-14 × 1.3-2.7 mm, subequal (outer sometimes slightly longer than inner), outer herbaceous or with herbaceous appendages, inner mostly chartaceous, midnerves (and often 2 collateral nerves) evident, (margins often narrowly membranous, fimbriate or tomentose) apices acute, acuminate to cuspidate, abaxial faces stipitate-glandular. Ray florets (0-)1-7; laminae 7-10 × 1.5-2.8 mm. Disc florets 7-20; corollas 8-9.5 mm. Cypselae tan to reddish, ellipsoid, 5-7 mm, glabrous or distally hairy; pappi off-white to reddish brown, 7-9 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering summer-fall. Rocky flats and sparsely wooded slopes; 1500-2200 m; Calif., Idaho, Oreg., Wash.

A tomentose entity that was recognized as Haplopappus greenei subsp. mollis differs also in other ways from typical Ericameria greenei. It may merit recognition at some level. A biosystematic and population-level investigation of this complex is needed to better understand the causes and significance of such variation.