Shrubs or subshrubs, spreading and often decumbent, 1-5 × 5-30 dm, mostly glabrous. grayish. Aerial flowering stems glabrous, usually grayish or reddish. Leaf blades blade linear to linear-oblanceolate, 0.6-1(-1.2) × 0.05-0.2(-0.4) cm, thinly white-tomentose abaxially, glabrous and green adaxially, margins tightly revolute. Inflorescences usually capitate, occasionally cymose; branches mostly glabrous. Involucres narrowly turbinate, 3-4 × 1.5-2 mm, glabrous or nearly so. Perianths glabrous or with only a few hairs proximally. 2n = 40.

Flowering year-round. Sandy mesa tops and slopes in coast scrub and chaparral communities; 0-300 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California).

Variety fasciculatum is the tetraploid coastal expression of the species, consisting mainly of low, spreading plants of the coastal bluffs and mesas near the ocean and on the offshore islands. It occurs along the immediate coast from San Luis Obispo County southward, but is found inland in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, where plants typically are larger and more shrub-like. The tetraploid var. fasciculatum and the octoploid var. foliolosum are not always distinct morphologically. Variety fasciculatum hybridizes with E. molle Greene on Cedros Island in Mexico. The decumbent coastal expressions are occasionally cultivated as cover plants in rock gardens.