Plants 10-50 cm. Stems (forming clumps) simple or branched among heads. Leaves 2-3(-4) pairs (basal 1-2 pairs usually withered by flowering, petiolate, petioles broadly winged, blades round-ovate, relatively small; sterile rosettes lacking), mostly cauline; petiolate (at least middle pair, petioles broadly to narrowly winged); blades broadly deltate to ovate, 4-8 × 2-6 cm (middle pair largest), margins irregularly denticulate to coarsely dentate-serrate, apices acute, faces puberulent (hairs minute) and stipitate-glandular. Heads 1-3(-5). Involucres usually narrowly turbinate, rarely narrowly campanulate. Phyllaries 9-20, linear to narrowly lanceolate. Ray florets 8-16, yellow. Disc florets: corollas yellow; anthers yellow. Cypselae brown to black, 5-7 mm, sparsely to moderately pilose and stipitate-glandular; pappi stramineous to tawny, bristles subplumose. 2n = 57, 76.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Moist meadows and conifer forests, stream banks, late snow-melt areas, montane to subalpine; 200-3600 m; Alta., B.C., Yukon; Alaska, Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.