Dioecious. Plants 15-35(-50) cm. Stolons none. Basal leaves (ephemeral) 3-5-nerved, narrowly oblanceolate or narrowly elliptic, 25-150(-200) × 4-20(-25) mm, tips mucronate, faces gray-pubescent. Cauline leaves oblanceolate or linear, 10-80 mm, usually flagged. Heads 8-30(-50+) in corymbiform arrays. Involucres: staminate (4-)5-6.5 mm; pistillate 4.5-7 mm . Phyllaries (each with dark brown or blackish spot in middle) distally white or cream (sometimes suffused pink to rose). Corollas: staminate 2.5-4 mm; pistillate 3-4.5 mm. Cypselae 1-1.8 mm, glabrous; pappi: staminate 3-4.5 mm; pistillate 3.5-4.5(-5.5) mm. 2n = 28.

Flowering summer. Dry meadows and aspen forest openings; 1000-3400 m; Alta., B.C., Sask.; Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Antennaria anaphaloides is native to the northern Rocky Mountains and is characterized by whitish phyllaries, each with a black spot at the base. Some morphologic overlap occurs between A. anaphaloides and A. pulcherrima; the two occur in different habitats: A. anaphaloides grows in dry meadows and aspen forest openings; A. pulcherrima is usually found in moist willow thickets along streams (K. M. Urbanska 1983). Antennaria anaphaloides is closely related to the other members of the Pulcherrimae group (R. J. Bayer 1990; Bayer et al. 1996).