Stems usually decumbent-ascending, 1.5-13 dm, minutely puberulent, glabrate, or glabrous basally. Leaf blades green, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 3-11 × 0.4-1.4(-1.8) cm, surfaces glabrous or glabrate. Inflorescences narrowly to widely forked, usually without main axis; fruiting involucres 4-6 mm, crosswalls of peduncle hairs usually dark. Perianth pink to deep purple-pink.

Flowering summer. Open gravelly or sandy areas in brush, pine, or mixed conifer forests; 1400-2800 m; Ariz., Colo., N.Mex., Utah; Mexico (Chihuahua).

Mirabilis linearis var. decipiens probably represents populations intergradient between var. linearis and Mirabilis melanotricha.