Herbs, matted, cespitose, pul-vinate, erect or spreading, some-times scapose, (0.3-)1-5 × 1-5(-8) dm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous, grayish or greenish to green. Stems matted to spreading, occasionally with persistent leaf bases, up to 1/4 or more height of plant; caudex stems matted or spreading; aerial flowering stems spreading to erect or nearly so, slender, rarely stout, solid, not fistulose, (0.4-)0.5-2(-2.5) dm, glabrous, floccose, or sparsely to densely tomentose to lanate. Leaves basal or more commonly sheathing 1-7(-15) cm up stem, 1 per node; petiole 0.2-2(-4) cm, tomentose to floccose; blade linear, oblanceolate, or spatulate to elliptic, (0.2-)1-10(-12) × 0.1-0.9(-1.2) cm, densely tomentose abaxially, less so to floccoseadaxially, margins plane or revolute, sometimes crenulate. Inflorescences cymose, subumbellate, umbellate, or capitate, (1-)3-10(-25) × (0.7-)1-10(-15) cm; branches dichotomous, sometimes absent, tomentose to floccose or glabrous; bracts 3, triangular, scalelike, 1-3(-5) mm. Peduncles absent or erect, 0.3-3 cm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous. Involucres 1 per node or 3-7(-9) per cluster, turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, 1.5-4(-5) × (1-)1.5-3(-3.5) mm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous; teeth 5, erect to spreading, 0.3-1 mm. Flowers (1-)2-4 mm; perianth various shades of white to cream or yellow, glabrous or pubescent; tepals connate proximal 1/ 1/ 3, mono-morphic, lanceolate, oblong to obovate or ovate to oval; stamens exserted, 2-4 mm; filaments pilose basally. Achenes light brown to brown, 2-3 mm, glabrous except for roughened to papillate beak.
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