Subshrubs, 25-100 cm; caudices branched, taproots 2-10+ cm. Stems 3-15+, branched in distal ¹ / 2 , slender and wiry, glabrous. Leaves: basal often withering by flowering, 20-35 × 6-12 mm, pinnatifid; cauline evenly spaced, blades oblong to linear, scalelike, 4-6 × 1-2 mm (except proximalmost), markedly reduced distally, margins usually entire, faces glabrous. Peduncles minutely glandular, if stipitate, then minutely so; bracts 5-25, imbricate, grading into phyllaries. Involucres hemispheric (narrowed at bases), 0.5-0.8 × 1-1.2 cm. Phyllaries in 5-6 series, oblong to linear-oblanceolate, 1.5-6.5 mm, apices acute, tipped by white bristle, faces minutely stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 15-25; corollas yellow, tubes 3.5-4 mm, laminae 5-6 × 1.5-2.5 mm. Disc florets 25-40+; corollas 4.8-6.3 mm. Cypselae narrowly obovoid to oblanceoloid, 1.5-2.5 mm, nerves 12-18, moderately tawny hairy; pappi tawny, 3.5-6 mm, a few abaxial bristles to ¹ / 3 of longest. 2n = 8, 16.

Flowering summer-fall. Rocky, dry slopes; 100-1000 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora).

Xanthisma junceum is reported from Arizona, but no specimen has been seen; as it is coastal in distribution, the report is likely based on a misidentified specimen.