Plants 40-70 cm. Stems yellowish green, usually leafless at flowering, compactly tomentose. Leaves yellowish green; blades 1-nerved, filiform, 10-30 × 0.7-1 mm, faces compactly tomentose. Involucres 9.5-12 mm. Phyllaries 22-25, apices erect , acute, abaxial faces tomentose or glabrate . Corollas 7-8.5 mm, tubes hairy, lobes 0.7-0.9 mm, villous; style appendages longer than stigmatic portions. Cypselae hairy; pappi 5.6-7.6 mm. 2n = 18.
Flowering late summer-fall. Blackbrush, matchweed, shadscale, and pinyon-juniper communities; 1200-1800 m; Ariz., Nev., Utah.