Flowering stems and inflorescence branches glabrous.

Flowering May-Oct. Sandy to gravelly washes, flats, and slopes, mixed grassland, saltbush, greasewood, and sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper, oak, or montane conifer woodlands; (100-)500-2900 m; Calif., Idaho, Nev., Oreg., Utah, Wash.

Variety baileyi basically is a taxon of arid regions of the far West, being found primarily in California and Nevada northward through eastern Oregon to eastern Washington. Isolated populations are known from south-central Idaho and from Beaver County, Utah. In southern California the variety is found along the desert edges of the Transverse Ranges but always just beyond the mixed grasslands and oak woodlands where E. elegans is typically encountered.