Plants 5-90 cm. Stems erect, tan, glabrous or villous to tomentose. Leaves: basal withering by flowering; cauline margins entire, faces gland-dotted (in pits, sometimes obscured by tomentum), abaxial glabrous or villous to tomentose. Heads borne singly or in corymbiform arrays, usually at ends of branchlets. Involucres obconic, 5-10 mm. Phyllaries green or purple-tipped, faces persistently tomentose, gland-dotted or not; inner scarious. Disc florets 6-25; corollas lavender (color more intense in tubes); style-branch appendages truncate-penicillate or lanceolate, 0.3-0.6 mm. Pappi tan, longer than cypselae. 2n = 10.

Flowering Jul-Oct. Open areas, roadsides, woodlands, conifer forests, sometimes granitic soils; 200-1800 m; Calif.

Lessingia leptoclada grows in the Sierra Nevada.