Plants 10–250 cm. Stems erect or ascending to spreading, white to green, fastigiately branched, tomentose. Leaves (usually crowded) usually ascending to spreading; blades filiform to narrowly oblanceolate (mostly adaxially sulcate to concave), 10–70 × 0.3–10 mm, midnerves mostly evident, apices acute, faces glabrous or tomentose, often gland-dotted (lacking well-defined circular pits) ; axillary fascicles absent. Heads in rounded to flat-topped, cymiform arrays (to 12 cm wide). Peduncles 1–20 mm (bracts usually 0, sometimes 1–5, reduced, scalelike). Involucres obconic to subcylindric, 6–16 × 2–4 mm. Phyllaries 10–31 in 3–5 series (often in vertical ranks), tan, ovate to lanceolate, 1.5–14 × 0.7–1.5 mm, strongly unequal, mostly chartaceous (mostly keeled), midnerves raised for nearly entire lengths, expanded apically, apices acute to obtuse, abaxial faces resinous. Ray florets 0. Disc florets (4–)5(–6); corollas 6–12 mm. Cypselae tan, turbinate to cylindric or oblanceoloid, 3–8 mm, glabrous or hairy (often ± pilose or sericeous); pappi whitish, 3–13 mm. 2n = 18.
Dry sandy, gravelly, or heavy clayey and alkali soils in open places in sagebrush, juniper-pinyon and ponderosa-pine zones at low elevations and occasionally found at higher elevations.
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