Plants herbs, erect or spreading, annual, 1–5 (7) dm tall, glabrous or infrequently slightly floccose, greenish, grayish, or reddish; stems with caudex absent, the aerial flowering stems erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.3–1 dm long, glabrous, infrequently slightly floccose proximally; leaves basal, the petioles 1–5 cm long, floccose, the blades elliptic to obovate or orbiculate, (0.5) 1–2.5 (3) cm long, (0.5) 1–3 (3.5) cm wide, tomentose to hirsute abaxially, floccose or glabrous and greenish adaxially, the margins plane; inflorescences cymose to cymose- paniculate or racemose, open, 5–60 cm long, 5–45 cm wide, the branches glabrous, the bracts 3, scalelike, 1–2 (4) mm long, 1–2 mm wide; peduncles ascending, curving, slender, 1–5 cm long, glabrous; involucres turbinate, (1.5) 2–3 mm long, (1) 1.5–2.5 mm wide, glabrous, the teeth 5, erect, 0.5–1 mm long; flowers 1–2.5 mm long, the perianth white to pale yellow, glabrous, pustulose proximally, the tepals monomorphic, lanceolate to spatulate or ovate, the stamens included, 1–1.8 mm long, the filaments glabrous; achenes brown, lenticular, 2–2.5 mm long, glabrous. 2n = 36.

Flowering May-Nov. Sandy to clayey or gravelly washes, flats, and slopes, saltbush, greasewood, sagebrush, and mountain mahogany communities, pinyon and/or juniper woodlands; 1300–2000 m; Lahontan Basin region of the Intermountain West in northeastern California (Lassen Co.), south-central Oregon (Lake Co.), and northwestern Nevada (Douglas, Humboldt, Lyon, Pershing, Storey, and Washoe cos.).