Plants 5-40 cm. Stems erect to spreading (close to the ground), green when young, becoming pale reddish brown, highly branched, coarsely long-stipitate-glandular. Leaves (crowded) ascending; blades elliptic to oblanceolate, 10-25 × 3-8 mm, midnerves evident (1-2 fainter, collateral nerves often present), (margins undulate) apices acute, apiculate, faces long-stipitate-glandular; fascicles usually absent, sometimes of 1-3 reduced leaves). Heads usually in cymiform arrays. Peduncles 1-12 mm (bracts 3-20, crowded, leafy, grading into phyllaries). Involucres broadly obconic, 6-8 × 4-7 mm. Phyllaries 25-30 in 3-4 series, green to tan, ovate to oblong, 4-8 × 0.7-1.5 mm, unequal, outer herbaceous or with herbaceous appendages, inner mostly chartaceous, midnerves usually evident, (margins entire, outer often herbaceous, inner scarious) apices acute to acuminate or attenuate, abaxial faces mostly stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 4-8; laminae elliptic, 6-9 × 1-2 mm. Disc florets 12-22; corollas 5.5-6.5 mm. Cypselae tan to brown, narrowly turbinate, 3-4.5 mm (usually 5-ribbed), moderately sericeous; pappi tan, 4-5.5 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer-fall. Rock outcrops, desert scrub, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa pine communities; 1300-3400 m; Ariz., Nev., Utah.