Plants 50-150 cm. Stems yellowish green, becoming whitish, leafy, compactly tomentose. Leaves mostly greenish yellow; blades 1-nerved, linear, 30-50 × 1-2 mm, faces ± tomentose. Involucres 10-14 mm. Phyllaries 13-20 (in vertical ranks), apices erect, acuminate, abaxial faces glabrous or tomentose. Corollas 10-12 mm, tubes puberulent, lobes 1.7-2.3 mm, glabrous; style appendages longer than stigmatic portions. Cypselae densely sericeous; pappi 7-8 mm.

Flowering late summer-fall. Open yellow-pine forests; 1200-3000 m; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California).