Caudices simple or apically branching and cespitose, 0.5-8 × 1-3 cm, axillary branches absent. Leaves: rosettes 1-100+, in clumps or not, 10-20(-30)-leaved, 2-8(-15) cm diam.; blade green, mostly linear or elliptic or oblong to oblong-lanceolate or tapering from base, 1-6(-11) × 0.2-1.2(-2) cm, 2-4 mm thick, base 0.5-1.5(-2) cm wide, apex acute to subacuminate, often apiculate, surfaces not farinose, glaucous (at least when young). Inflorescences: cyme 1-4-branched, narrowly obpyramidal; branches not twisted (flowers on topside), simple or 1-3 times bifurcate; cincinni 2-3, 2-10(-18)-flowered, scarcely circinate, 3-15 cm; floral shoots 2-25 × 0.1-0.4(-0.6) cm; leaves 5-20, ascending, triangular-lanceolate, 4-40 × 2-11 mm, apex acute. Pedicels erect, not bent in fruit, 1-5(-17) mm. Flowers: calyx 3-7 × 2-7 mm; petals connate 1-3(-4.5) mm, mostly pale yellow, straw yellow, or almost white, rarely bright yellow, commonly red-lineolate especially on keel, 5-16(-18) × 1.5-4.5 mm, (margins often somewhat erose), apex acute, with tips mostly erect; pistils connivent, erect. Unripe follicles erect. 2n = 34.

Dudleya abramsii, a widespread diploid, is largely montane, growing mostly on granite or limestone, but its northwestern subspp. bettinae, murina, and setchellii are local at lower elevations, on serpentine. It forms small clumps, 2-11 cm in diameter. From the widespread diploid D. cymosa, generally a larger plant, it is nearly distinct in its mostly cespitose, narrow-leaved rosettes and simple cyme branches, and distinctively, the antisepalous stamens are adnate higher on the corolla tube than the epipetalous and are often 1-2 mm longer. The petals commonly much exceed the stamens and pistils, and the pistils are attenuate. Both species are variable, and subsp. costatifolia is somewhat intermediate.

Five of the six subspecies are very similar, with only small differences, and only subsp. costatifolia is more distinctive.