Plants 3-45 cm. Stems (peduncles) ebracteate. Leaves: blades linear to oblanceolate, 3-20 cm, bases attenuate to obtuse, margins plane, usually coarsely toothed or pinnately lobed (lobes spreading or retrorse), sometimes entire, sometimes ciliolate, faces glabrous. Involucres 10-20 mm. Phyllaries 8-35, evenly and minutely purple-dotted, ovate-lanceolate, apices acuminate. faces glabrous. Florets 13-75; ligules 10-20 mm. Cypselae brown, 5-10 mm, sometimes narrowed distally 1-3 mm, not beaked; pappi of 30-50, barbellulate bristles 6-10 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Meadows, rocky slopes, pumice flats, mixed subalpine woodland and Abies subalpine zone; 1300-2500 m; Calif., Oreg., Wash.

Nothocalaïs alpestris grows in the subalpine Cascade Range, Klamath Mountains, and (rarely) the Sierra Nevada.