Biennials or perennials, 40-120 cm. Stems (1-)3-10, leafy, lanate to woolly. Leaves basal and cauline; blades gray to grayish green, broadly oblanceolate to spatulate, 6-10 cm, margins undulate to weakly lobed, faces densely lanate; distal cauline leaves lanceolate to narrowly obovate, gradually reduced. Heads 2-5. Involucres broadly conic to hemispheric, 15-26 mm diam. Phyllaries 9-14 mm, outer lanceolate, apices attenuate. Ray florets 22-40; corolla tubes glabrous, laminae yellow, 9-12 mm. Disc corollas yellow. Cypselae 4-6 mm; pappus scales subequal, 1-2 mm. 2n = 38.

Flowering late spring-summer. Often common after fires, open sites in chaparral and woodlands, mostly rocky, metamorphic soils; of conservation concern; 1000-2000 m; Calif.

Hulsea californica grows in the eastern Peninsular Ranges, San Diego County.