Perennials, 10-40(-50) cm (rhizomes stout). Herbage closely lanate to floccose-tomentose, unevenly glabrescent. Stems usually single, rarely clustered. Leaves reduced distally; obscurely petiolate; blades oblanceolate to lanceolate, (4-)6-12+ × (1-)1.5-3 cm, bases tapering to winged petioles, margins dentate to denticulate (denticles dark, cartilaginous; mid and distal leaves smaller, bractlike). Heads (10-)14-24(-30+) in corymbiform arrays. Calyculi 0 or of 1-3+ lance-deltate to lance-linear bractlets (mostly less than 1 mm). Phyllaries ± 13, 3-5 mm, tips usually black. Ray florets usually ± 5, sometimes 0; corolla laminae 5-8(-10) mm. Cypselae glabrous.

Flowering summer. Open wooded areas and subalpine meadows; 1600-3500 m; Calif., Nev.

Senecio scorzonella is restricted to high elevations in the Sierra Nevada-Cascade uplift and the White Mountains of California; it barely enters adjacent Nevada.