Plants 10-50 cm. Stems glabrous. Leaf blades green, 1-nerved, filiform, terete, 10-30 × 0.5-1 mm, not twisted, margins obscurely involute, not noticeably ciliate, apices acicular, faces hairy. Heads in rounded cymiform arrays. Involucres ± turbinate to obconic, 5-6 mm. Phyllaries 14-24 in 4-5 series, in 4-5 weak vertical ranks, (spreading at maturity) green to brown subapical patch, midnerves glandular-thickened distally, convex or weakly keeled, broadly linear to linear-oblong, unequal, margins scarious, eciliate or distally erose-ciliolate, apices sharply acute or apiculate, flat, faces glabrous. Disc florets 3-5; corollas 3.5-5 mm, lobes 1-1.2 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering summer-fall. Desert slopes in granitic sand; 1300-2000 m; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Nev., Utah.