Perennials, 4-20 cm; taprooted, caudices multicipital crowns or branches relatively short and thick. Stems erect to ascending or decumbent-prostrate, densely strigose (hairs relatively thin), eglandular. Leaves basal (persistent) and cauline; basal (silvery) blades spatulate, broadly elliptic, 50-250 × 5-13 mm, cauline abruptly reduced distally, margins entire, faces densely strigoso-sericeous (hairs gray-white), eglandular. Heads 1-4. Involucres 4-6 × 9-14 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, finely hirsuto-strigose, sparsely minutely glandular. Ray florets 20-50; corollas blue to purple, sometimes white, 5-9 mm, laminae not coiling or reflexing. Disc corollas 3.1-4.3 mm. Cypselae 2-2.5 mm, 2-nerved, faces strigoso-sericeous; pappi: outer of setae, inner of 20-30 bristles.

Flowering Jun-Aug. Clay hills, rocky slopes, limestone taluses, shale outcrops, sagebrush-grasslands; (1300-)1600-3000 m; Idaho, Mont., Wyo.