Dioecious (staminates and pistillates in equal frequencies in populations). Plants 7.5-14 cm. Stolons 1-4 cm. Cauline leaves 4-20 mm. Heads 2-6. Involucres: staminate 4-6.5 mm; pistillate 7-8 mm. Corollas: staminate 2.5-3 mm; pistillate 3-4.5 mm. Cypselae 1.2-1.8 mm; pappi: staminate 3-4 mm; pistillate 3.5-5 mm. 2n = 56.

Flowering summer. Arctic and alpine tundra, on dry rocky outcrops, fell fields, or gravelly frost boils; 600-1500 m; N.W.T., Yukon; Alaska.

Subspecies neoalaskana is dioecious (sexual) and occurs from the eastern Brooks Range, Alaska, to the Richardson Mountains and into the central MacKenzie Mountains, on the Yukon-Northwest Territories boundary (R. J. Bayer 1993). It intergrades somewhat with the other two subspecies of Antennaria friesiana; it can be separated from other arctic members of Antennaria because it is dioecious and has 2-6 heads and well-developed stolons. It is a likely progenitor of the A. alpina complex.