Herbs, matted, occasionally polygamodioecious, 0.4-1.5 × 0.5-6 dm, thinly tomentose to glabrate. Stems: caudex spread-ing; aerial flowering stems erect or nearly so, slender, solid, not fistulose, arising at nodes of caudex branches and at distal nodes of short, nonflowering aerial branches, 0.4-1.2 dm, with a whorl of 4-8 leaflike bracts ca. midlength, similar to leaf blades, 0.3-1.5 × 0.1-0.3 cm. Leaves in basal rosettes; petiole 0.05-0.5(-1) cm, tomentose; blade oblanceolate or elliptic to spatulate, 0.4-1.5(-1.9) × 0.1-0.5 cm, lanate on both surfaces, or tomentose abaxially and slightly less so and greenish adaxially, margins entire, plane. Inflorescences capitate, 0.8-1.5 cm wide; branches absent; bracts absent immediately below involucre. Involucres 1 per node, turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, 2.5-3.5 × 2-2.5 mm; teeth 6-14, lobelike, strongly reflexed, 1.5-4(-6) mm. Flowers 4-9 mm, including 0.7-2 mm stipelike base; perianth yellow, cream, or ochroleucous to rose-red, sparsely to densely villous abaxially; tepals monomorphic, obovate; stamens exserted, 4-6 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 3-4.5 mm, glabrous except for pubescent beak.
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