Plants spreading to decumbent, 0.2-0.8(-1) × 0.5-5(-7) dm, appressed-pubescent. Leaves basal; petiole 0.5-2 mm; blade oblanceolate, 0.5-1.5(-2) × 0.3-0.6(-0.8) cm, thinly pubescent. Inflorescences with involucres in small, open clusters 0.5-1.5 cm diam., greenish or grayish to reddish; bracts 2, sessile, usually leaflike, oblanceolate to elliptic, 0.5-1.5 cm × 1.5-5 mm, gradually reduced and becoming scalelike at distal nodes, linear, aciculate, acerose, 0.4-1 cm × 1-2(-3) mm, awns straight, 1-3 mm. Involucres 3-10, grayish to reddish, urceolate, slightly ventricose basally, 3-3.5 mm, slightly corrugate, without scarious or membranous margins, densely pubescent; teeth widely spreading to divergent, unequal, 0.3-0.6 mm or 3-6 mm; awns uncinate, unequal, with longer anterior one 1.5-2.5 mm, others spreading, 0.3-0.6 mm. Flowers included or only slightly exserted; perianth bicolored with floral tube greenish white and tepals white, cylindric, 2.5-3 mm, sparsely pubescent; tepals connate 2/ 3 their length, dimorphic, linear-oblong, those of outer whorl spreading, 1.5 times longer than those of inner whorl, rounded, entire or emarginate to slightly 2-lobed apically, those of inner whorl erect, acute, entire to erose, slightly fimbriate or 2-lobed apically; stamens 3, included; filaments distinct, 2-2.5 mm, glabrous; anthers white, ovate, 0.3-0.4 mm. Achenes brown, globose-lenticular, 2.5-3 mm. 2n = 42.

Flowering May-Sep. Sandy to gravelly flats and slopes, mixed grassland and chaparral communities, pine-oak woodlands; 400-2000 m; Calif.

Chorizanthe clevelandii is locally infrequent to common in scattered locations in the Coast Ranges from Mendocino and Lake counties south to Santa Barbara County, and across the Transverse and Tehachapi ranges of Ventura and Kern counties to the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County. It is the most widely distributed of the spineflowers endemic to California. The involucres stick to fur, clothing, and fingers, aiding dispersal of the achenes.