Herbs or subshrubs, compact or spreading, matted, 0.5-2.5 × 3-15 dm, tomentose to floccose. Stems: caudex absent or spreading; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, usually arising directly from a taproot, 0.5-1.5 dm, tomentose to floccose. Leaves basal, typically not in rosettes; petiole 0.5-6 cm, tomentose to floccose; blade usually narrowly elliptic, 1-3(-3.5) × (0.3-)0.5-1(-1.2) cm, densely tomentose abaxially, thinly tomentose, floccose or glabrous and grayish to greenish adaxially, margins entire, plane or undulate and crisped. Inflorescences umbellate or compound-umbellate, 10-30 × 10-25 cm; branches tomentose to floccose; bracts 3-9, semileaflike at proximal node, 0.5-2 × 0.2-1 cm, often scalelike distally. Involucres 1 per node, turbinate, 1.5-7 × 2-5 mm, tomentose to floccose; teeth 5-8, erect, 0.1-0.5 mm. Flowers 3-8 mm, including 0.7-2 mm stipelike base; perianth white to cream, densely pubescent abaxially; tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl lanceolate to elliptic, 2-5 × 1-3 mm, those of inner whorl lanceolate to fan-shaped, 1.5-6 × 2-4 mm; stamens exserted, 2-4 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown to brown, 4-5 mm, glabrous except for sparsely pubescent beak.
Sandy to gravelly or infrequently rocky flats and slopes, mixed grassland, saltbush, blackbrush, creosote bush, mesquite, and sagebrush communities and montane woodlands, 1300-2900 metres.
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