Shrubs, 30-100 cm; with woody, ± wandlike, branched caudices, bark tan to gray, fairly smooth, flaky with age. Stems ascending, green, becoming tan, glabrous or puberulent. Leaves ascending to spreading; sessile; blades usually 5-nerved, linear to narrowly elliptic or lanceolate, 7-80 × 1-12 mm, flat, margins often ciliolate, apices attenuate to spinulose, faces glabrous or scabrellous. Heads in usually cymiform to corymbiform, rarely racemiform arrays, not overtopped by distal leaves. Involucres obconic to subcylindric, 6.5-12 × 3-5 mm. Phyllaries 50-60+ in 5-6(-7) series, ± in spirals, tan, midnerves greenish to brown, raised, ± expanded apically, oblong to elliptic, 1-8.5 × 1-2 mm, unequal, mostly chartaceous, apices acute to rounded, erect, ± thickened, faces glabrous, not resinous. Disc florets 10-16(-20); corollas 5.5-8 mm, lobes 1.5-2.3 mm; style branches 2.8-3.7 mm, appendages 1.4-1.9 mm. Cypselae reddish brown, cylindric, 4-6 mm, ± 4-angled, faces hairy; pappi tan, 6-7.5 mm. 2n = 18 (as Haplopappus scopulorum).

Flowering late summer-fall. Brushy mountain slopes, ponderosa pine communities; 1200-2200 m; Ariz., Utah.