Perennials, 30-90 cm; taprooted, caudices simple or branches relatively short and slender, woody. Stems erect (arising from rootcrowns or caudex branches), glabrous, eglandular. Leaves mostly cauline; blades linear, 10-60 × 0.1-1(-2) mm, barely reduced distally, margins entire, ciliate, faces glabrous, eglandular. Heads (discoid) 1 or 2-5 in loosely corymbiform arrays. Involucres 5.5-7.5 × 8-12 mm. Phyllaries in 3-5 series (apices purplish), glabrous, minutely glandular. Ray (pistillate) florets 0. Disc corollas 4.2-6 mm (throats slightly indurate, not inflated). Cypselae 2.4-2.8 mm, 2-nerved, faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of setae, inner of 26-38 bristles.

Flowering May-Sep. Chaparral or open woods, ponderosa or jeffrey pine, Douglas fir, usually over serpentine, sometimes rocky alluvium; of conservation concern; (100-)500-1600 m; Calif.