Plants 60-150 cm. Stems yellowish green, leafy at flowering, densely tomentose. Leaves yellowish green; blades 1-nerved, linear, 30-50 × 1-1.5 mm, faces glabrate. Involucres 10-12.5 mm. Phyllaries 13-19 (outer weakly keeled), apices erect, acute (outer) or acute to obtuse (inner), outer abaxial faces scurfy-tomentulose, inner glabrous. Corollas 9.5-11 mm, tubes mostly glabrous, lobes 0.7-1 mm, glabrous or villous; style appendages longer than stigmatic portions. Cypselae usually glabrous, sometimes hairy; pappi 9-10 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer-fall. Sandy gravels of dry streambeds; 1200-1800 m; Ariz., N.Mex., Utah.