Herbs, matted, scapose, 0.2-1.5 × 0.5-4 dm, tomentose or floccose to subglabrous, greenish or grayish. Stems matted, with persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 5 height of plant; caudex stems matted; aerial flowering stems scapelike, erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 0.2-1(-1.5) dm, tomen-tose or floccose to subglabrous or even glabrous.  Leaves basal, fasciculate in terminal tufts; petiole (0.2-)0.4-2(-3) cm, tomentose; blade oblanceolate to spatulate or elliptic, 0.5-1.5(-2) × (0.2-)0.3-0.8(-1) cm, densely white- or greenish-tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane.  Inflorescences capitate, 0.8-1.7(-2) cm; branches absent; bracts 3-5, linear to narrowly scalelike, triangular, 1.5-3 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres 3-5 per cluster, turbinate-campanulate to campanulate, 2.5-3.5 × 2.5-4 mm, membranous, sparsely pubescent or rarely sparsely glandular abaxially; teeth 5-6, erect to spreading, 0.7-1.8(-2) mm. Flowers (2.5-)3-3.5 mm; perianth greenish yellow or pale yellow, rarely yellow, glabrous or sparsely glandular abaxially; tepals connate proximal 1/ 1/ 2, monomorphic, spatulate to obovate; stamens exserted, 2-3.5 mm; filaments glabrous or sparsely pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 2.5-3 mm, glabrous except for slightly papillate beak in some. 2n = 40.

Flowering Jun-Sep. Limestone or granitic gravelly slopes and ridges, mixed grassland and sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper and subalpine conifer woodlands; 1600-3300 m; Nev.

Eriogonum kingii is known only from Elko and northern White Pine counties. It is occasionally cultivated in rock gardens.