Plants 20-50 cm. Stems erect, tan, stipitate-glandular. Leaves: basal usually persistent at flowering; cauline margins entire, faces stipitate-glandular, abaxial glabrous or glabrate. Heads borne singly, at ends of branchlets. Involucres hemispheric to campanulate, 5-7 mm. Phyllaries purple-tipped, glabrous, stipitate-glandular; inner scarious. Disc florets 5-15; corollas lavender (color more intense in tubes); style-branch appendages truncate-penicillate, 0.1-0.3 mm. Pappi tan, longer than cypselae. 2n = 10.

Flowering Jul-Oct. Open hills, roadsides, chaparral, woodlands, forests, often on serpentinite soils; 100-1000 m; Calif.

Lessingia ramulosa is known from the northern San Francisco Bay area and North Coast ranges.