Biennials (sweetly fragrant), 50-120(-150) cm; taprooted. Stems (erect) gray-tomentose, glabrescent, stipitate-glandular beneath tomentum. Leaf blades linear to lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly spatulate, (1-)3-7 cm × 3-5(-7) mm, bases not clasping, decurrent 2-10 mm, margins revolute and closely undulate, faces concolor, greenish, loosely tomentose, stipitate-glandular. Heads usually in paniculiform (broadly columnar or at least as long as broad, sometimes pyramidal) arrays. Involucres turbinate to short-cylindric, 5-6 mm. Phyllaries in 4-5 series, usually pinkish, sometimes white or greenish (hyaline, dull), ovate to ovate-oblong, loosely tomentose (bases). Pistillate florets 38-62. Bisexual florets 2-7. Cypselae ridged, smooth. 2n = 28.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Dry, open slopes, sparsely wooded, sandy fields, dunes; 20-600 m; Calif.