Plants herbs, erect, 1–3 dm tall, glabrous, yellowish-green to gray; aerial flowering stems erect, 0.2–1 dm long, glabrous; leaves basal, the petioles 0.5–4 cm long, tomentose, the blades orbiculate to subcordate, 0.5–2 (2.5) cm long and wide, white-tomentose abaxially, tomentose to floccose and grayish or greenish adaxially; inflorescences cymose, open, narrow, 5–25 cm long, 5–10 (15) cm wide, the branches glabrous, the bracts 0.5– 1.5 mm long, 1–2 mm wide; peduncles absent; involucres terminal at tips of slender branchlets at least proximally, not appressed to mm wide; peduncles absent; involucres terminal at tips of slender branchlets at least proximally, not appressed to branches, turbinate-campanulate, 1.5–2 mm long and wide, glabrous, the teeth 5, erect, 0.5–0.8 mm long; flowers 1–1.5 mm long, the perianth cream, reddish-green to reddish proximally, glabrous, the tepals monomorphic, obovate, the stamens exserted, 1–1.5 mm long, the filaments pilose proximally; achenes brown, lenticular, 1–1.3 mm long.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Sandy flats and slopes, sagebrush communities, pinyon-juniper, conifer woodlands; 1700–2200 m; eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo and Mono cos., California, and in Alkali Valley, Mineral Co., and in Fish Lake Valley, Esmeralda Co., Nevada.