Plants 10-500 cm. Stems erect to spreading, green when young, fastigiately branched, glabrous or sparsely hairy, gland-dotted, resinous. Leaves mostly ascending to spreading, older deflexed; blades filiform (sulcate to concave), 25-90 × 0.5-3 mm, midnerves obscure to evident, apices acuminate to attenuate, often mucronate, faces glabrous or sparsely hairy, gland-dotted (in deep, circular pits), resinous; axillary leaf fascicles sometimes present. Heads in rounded, cymiform arrays (to 10 cm wide). Peduncles 1-15 mm (bracts 0-7, scalelike, resembling phyllaries). Involucres turbinate to subcampanulate, 4-6 × 3.5-4.5 mm. Phyllaries 20-25 in 3-4 series, tan, narrowly triangular to lanceolate, 1.5-5 × 0.5-1 mm, unequal, mostly chartaceous, midnerves evident, raised, mostly uniform in width to slightly dilated apically, (margins membranous, fimbriate) apices erect, acute, abaxial faces resinous. Ray florets 0. Disc florets 10-25; corollas 4-5 mm. Cypselae tan to brown, narrowly turbinate, 2-3 mm (5-ribbed), hairy; pappi tan, 3.5-4.5 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer-fall. Dry foothill slopes, in chaparral; 90-2000 m; Calif., Oreg.