Plants 20-75 cm. Stems glabrous. Leaves: basal blades oblanceolate to elliptic, 50-250 × 5-25 mm, rather thick and succulent, margins entire or denticulate, faces glabrous, often glaucous. Heads pedunculate or sessile, often crowded distally, in narrowly paniculiform, racemiform, or spiciform arrays. Involucres hemispheric, 6-8 × 8-12 mm. Phyllaries: bases pale, margins sometimes ciliate, apices erect, green, acute, faces glabrous. Cypsela faces glabrous or densely sericeous. 2n = 12, 24.

Flowering Jul-Oct. Alkaline meadows, open fields, around hot springs and boggy areas; 100-2500 m; Calif., Idaho, Nev., Oreg., Utah.

Variety paniculata is recognized by its relatively small involucres and glabrous phyllaries. This is the most variable variety and here includes a number of forms previously treated as separate varieties or subspecies. Both diploid and tetraploid races occur; there appears to be no corresponding morphologic differences (R. A. Mayes 1976).