Plants 8-40 cm (self-incom-patible); not glandular, not strongly scented. Stems not purple-streaked. Leaf blades lanceolate or oblanceolate to linear, 6-70(-90) mm, margins (basal leaves) lobed (pinnatifid). Involucres hemispheric to depressed-hemispheric, 4-11 × 3-11+ mm. Phyllaries 3-15, apices often longer (sometimes shorter) than folded bases. Paleae subtending ± all disc florets. Ray florets 3-15; laminae proximally yellow, distally white or light yellow, 5-18(-23) mm. Disc florets 4-100+; corollas 3.5-4.5 mm; anthers ± dark purple. Ray cypselae glabrous. Disc pappi of 9-12 white to tawny, lance-attenuate, ± equal scales 2-5 mm, each neither plumose nor adaxially woolly. 2n = 14.

Flowering Feb-May. Grasslands, meadows, open woodlands, disturbed sites, often valley bottoms, swales, edges of vernal pools, usually on heavy or shallow soils, sometimes serpentine; 10-800 m; Calif.

Layia fremontii occurs in the Great Valley and adjacent foothills of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada.