Plants 20-60 cm. Stems glabrous, glaucous. Leaves: basal blades linear-oblanceolate, 50-200 × 4-28 mm, thick, succulent, margins remotely and obscurely denticulate, glabrous, glaucous. Heads sessile or nearly so, crowded, in glomerate-spiciform arrays. Involucres obconic, 5-8 × 5-7 mm. Phyllaries: bases pale (chartaceous), margins ciliate, apices recurved, green, faces glabrous. Cypsela faces densely sericeous to glabrate. 2n = 12.

Flowering Jul-Oct. Alkaline flats, saline meadows and marshes; 300-2200 m; Calif., Nev., Utah.