Plants 2-5(-25) cm. Stems decumbent, tan, woolly. Leaves: basal withering by flowering; cauline margins entire, faces gland-dotted (in pits), abaxial woolly. Heads borne singly or in corymbiform arrays, in axils of leaves or at ends of branchlets. Involucres obconic, 7-10 mm. Phyllaries green, faces woolly, gland-dotted; inner cartilaginous (stiff, white). Disc florets 10-20; corollas white or pale lavender (color more intense in tubes); style-branch appendages truncate-penicillate, 0.2-0.4 mm. Pappi pink to red, longer than cypselae. 2n = 10.

Flowering Jun-Oct. Open plains, often clay soils; 200-900 m; Calif.

Lessingia nana is known from the northern Great Central Valley, adjacent foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and foothills of the Cascade Range.