Plants 10-30 cm. Stems decumbent to ascending, green when young, often reddish tinged, soon reddish brown to brown, branched, twigs long-stipitate-glandular (sometimes with crinkly hairs interspersed). Leaves mostly erect or ascending; blades spatulate (flat), 25-40 × 2.5-7 mm, midnerves (plus 2 smaller, collateral nerves) evident, apices acuminate, faces long-stipitate-glandular; fascicles absent. Heads in (leafy) congested, paniculiform to cymiform arrays (1-4 cm wide). Peduncles 3-15 mm (long-stipitate-glandular, bracts 0-3, phyllary-like). Involucres turbinate to narrowly campanulate, 14-22 × 6-8 mm. Phyllaries 17-23 in 2-4 series, tan to green, lanceolate to elliptic, 10-14 × 1.6-2.7 mm, subequal (outer often slightly longer than inner), outer herbaceous or with herbaceous cusps, inner mostly chartaceous, midnerves (often plus 2 collateral nerves) evident, (margins villous distally) apices acute to acuminate, abaxial faces stipitate-glandular, inner sometimes glabrous. Ray florets 0. Disc florets 10-21; corollas 9.5-12 mm. Cypselae tan to reddish, ellipsoid, 7-8 mm, glabrous or apically hairy; pappi off-white to brown, sometimes reddish, 9-9.5 mm. 2n = 18 [as Haplopappus bloomeri subsp. compactus].

Flowering summer-fall. Gravelly to sandy clay soils with manzanita, spruce, fir, and pine; of conservation concern; 2400-3100 m; Utah.

Ericameria zionis is known from southern Utah.