Shrubs, rounded, usually sparsely branched, 3-6 × 4-8 dm. Leaf blades oblanceolate, (0.5-)0.8-1.5 × 0.2-0.5 cm, tomentose to floccose abaxially. Inflorescences rather dense 5-12 × 5-20 cm; branches rather diffuse, with racemosely arranged involucres at tips, slender, round, smooth, floccose to thinly tomentose, not spinose. Involucres campanulate, 1-1.5(-2) × 1-1.5 mm. Flowers 2-3 mm; perianth yellowish white.

Flowering May-Oct. Calcareous gravelly washes and slopes in saltbush and creosote bush communities, and occasionally in juniper woodlands; 900-2300 m; Ariz., Calif., Nev.

Variety floccosum is found in scattered desert ranges of eastern San Bernardino County and in the Kingston Mountains of Inyo County, California, in the McCullough Mountains of southern Clark County, Nevada, and just over the border in Mohave County, Arizona. It is disjunct in the Juniper Mesa area of west-central Yavapai County, Arizona, northwest of Prescott.