Plants 10-40 cm. Stolons 2-7 cm. Basal leaves spatulate, oblanceolate, or cuneate, 20-40 mm, faces usually gray-pubescent, adaxial sometimes green-glabrous. Cauline leaves 8-36 mm. Heads 6-20. Involucres: pistillate 5-8 mm. Phyllaries distally usually green, pink, red, or white, seldom brown. Corollas: pistillate 3-4.5 mm. Pappi: pistillate 4-6 mm. 2n = 42, 56.

Flowering summer. Dry to moist habitats, tundra, rock outcrops, fields, meadows, forests, savannas, and roadcuts, other similarly disturbed places; 400-3800 m; Alta., B.C., Man., N.W.T., Ont ., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mich., Minn., Mont., N.Dak., Oreg. Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Subspecies rosea is most closely related to Antennaria corymbosa and A. racemosa (R. J. Bayer 1989e), as shown by its relatively long basal leaves ranging from gray-pubescent to adaxially green-glabrous.

Subspecies rosea is expected to occur in Nevada.