Plants herbs, erect, 3–5 dm tall, 0.5–1 dm across, tomentose, brownish; stems slightly spreading to erect, without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/5 height of plant, the caudex stems absent, the aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 1.5–2.5 dm long, tomentose; leaves basal, 1 per node, the petioles (2) 3–7 cm long, tomentose, the blades elliptic to oblong, (2) 2.5–4.5 (5) cm long, 1.5–3.5 (4) cm wide, thinly tomentose abaxially, less so to floccose and greenish adaxially, the margins plane; inflorescences cymose, with involucres racemosely disposed at tips, 15–25 cm long, 5–15 cm wide, the branches dichotomous, tomentose, the bracts 3, scalelike, triangular, 2–4 mm long; peduncles absent; involucres 1 per node, turbinate-campanulate, 3–4 mm long and wide, tomentose, the teeth 5, erect, 0.1–0.3 mm long; flowers 2.5–4.5 (5) mm long, the perianth creamy white or cream, glabrous, the hypanthium 1⁄4 length of perianth, the tepals monomorphic, broadly oblanceolate, the stamens exserted, 2.5–5 mm long, the filaments pilose proximally; achenes light brown, 2–4 mm long, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Gravelly flats, slopes, and ridges, saltbush and sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper, oak, and montane conifer woodlands; 1700–3100 (3500) m; White and Inyo mountains of Mono and Inyo cos., California, eastward in scattered foothills and mountain ranges to the central Great Basin of Nevada in Esmeralda, Lander, Lincoln, Mineral, and Nye cos.