Plants herbs, spreading to somewhat erect, annual, 1–4.5 (6) dm tall, glabrous and often glaucous, yellow- green; stems with caudex absent, the aerial flowering stems erect, occasionally hollow and fistulose, 0.5–2 (3) dm long, glabrous, minutely hirsute or short-hispid proximally; leaves basal, the petioles 1–6 cm long, hirsute, the blades broadly oblong, (0.5) 1–2.5 (4) cm long, (0.5) 1–2 (3) cm wide, short-hirsute on both surfaces and greenish, the margins wavy; inflorescences cymose, open to dense, usually spreading, 5–30 cm long, 5–50 cm wide, the branches usually not fistulose, glabrous, the bracts 3, scalelike, 1–4 mm long, 1–2 mm wide; peduncles mostly erect, straight, capillary, 0.5–1.5 cm long, glabrous; involucres turbinate, 0.7–1 mm long, 0.6–0.9 mm wide, glabrous, the teeth 4 (5), erect, 0.3–0.4 mm long; flowers 1–2 mm long, the perianth yellow to greenish yellow with greenish to reddish midribs, densely hirsute with coarse curved hairs, the tepals monomorphic, narrowly ovate, the stamens exserted, 0.9–1.5 mm long, the filaments sparsely pubescent proximally; achenes light brown to brown, lenticular to trigonous, 1–1.5 mm long, glabrous.

Flowering year-round. Clayey, sandy to gravelly flats, washes, and slopes, mixed grassland, saltbush, creosote bush, blackbrush, and mesquite communities, pinyon and/or juniper woodlands; -60–1500 (1900) m; Sonoran Desert and the southern portion of the Mojave Desert from southern California (Imperial, Inyo, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego cos.), east across southern Nevada (Clark, Lincoln, and Nye cos.), southwestern Utah (Washington Co.), and Arizona (Coconino, Cochise, Gila, Graham, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, and Yuma cos.) to southern New Mexico (Cibola, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Otero, Socorro, and Valencia cos.)., and south to northern Mexico in northern Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua.