Stems usually many, clumped, often glabrous or glabrate basally, sparsely to densely retrorse-puberulent distally. Leaf blades 0.5-3.5 × 1-3.5 cm. Inflorescences cymose, usually broad; branches ± equal throughout; involucres 5-7 mm; bracts 60-70% connate, lobes ovate-triangular orovate-oblong, base often 70-100% of height, apex obtuse or acute. Flowers: perianth usually white, (rarely white tinged with pink at base, or pale pink). Fruits gray-brown, dark charcoal brown, often dark mottled, often faintly marked with 10 paler longitudinal lines, ellipsoid, obovoid, or almost spheric, occasionally wider than long, 3.5-5 × 2.6-4 mm. 2n = 62, 64, 66.

Flowering late winter and spring, most vigorously in spring, occasionally in summer. Desert brushlands, banks; 100-2000 m; Ariz., Calif., Nev., Oreg., Utah; Mexico (Baja California).