Plants 9-25 cm. Stolons 1.5-4.5 cm. Basal leaves spatulate to cuneate, 10-20 mm, faces gray-pubescent. Cauline leaves 6-20 mm. Heads 4-11. Involucres: pistillate 4-6.5 mm. Phyllaries distally usually brown, sometimes cream, gray, or pale yellow. Corollas: pistillate 2.5-4 mm. Pappi: pistillate 3.5-5 mm. 2n = 42, 56, (70).

Flowering summer. Dry to moist habitats, tundra, rock outcrops, fields, meadows, forests, savannas, and roadcuts, other similarly disturbed places; 0-3800 m; Greenland; Alta., B.C., Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., N.Mex. (expected), Oreg., Utah, Wash., Wyo.

Subspecies confinis is closely related to Antennaria pulchella and A. umbrinella (R. J. Bayer 1989e), as shown by its relatively small basal leaves and smallish heads that usually have dark phyllaries.