Perennials, to 150 cm (roots fibrous). Leaves bluish green (heavily glaucous), blades lanceolate to elliptic (not lobed), leathery, bases attenuate, margins entire or remotely serrulate, apices acute, faces glabrous; basal petiolate, 20-50 × 4-10 cm; cauline petiolate or sessile, 10-25 × 2-8 cm. Heads borne singly or (2-10) in ± corymbiform arrays. Phyllaries to 1.5 cm. Receptacles conic to columnar; paleae 4-6.5 mm, apices acute, often attenuate, abaxial tips hairy. Ray florets 7-15; laminae elliptic to oblong, 25-40 × 8-14 mm, abaxially hairy. Discs 15-35 × 14-22 mm. Disc florets 250-400+; corollas yellowish green, 3-4 mm; style branches ca. 1 mm, apices acute. Cypselae 4-5.5 mm; pappi coroniform or of ± connate scales, to 1.2 mm. 2n = 36.

Flowering summer-fall. Meadows, seeps, streamsides; 60-1300 m; Calif., Oreg.

Rudbeckia glaucescens often grows on serpentine and often with Darlingtonia.