Plants herbs, compact or spreading, matted, 0.3–2 dm tall, 0.5–3 dm across, floccose or glabrous; stems with caudex absent or spreading, the aerial flowering stems prostrate to weakly erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, usually arising directly from a taproot, 0.3–1.5 (1.8) dm long, villous to floccose or glabrous; leaves basal, mostly in loose rosettes, the petioles 1–4 cm long, tomentose to floccose, the blades ovate to round, 1–2.5 (4) cm long, 0.8–2 cm wide, grayish- to tannish-lanate or tomentose abaxially, glabrous and green adaxially, or glabrous on both surfaces, the margins entire, plane; inflorescences capitate or umbellate, 1–3 (5) cm long, 1– 4 cm wide, the branches floccose or glabrous, the bracts 2, foliaceous, (0.4) 1–2 cm long, 0.1–0.2 (0.4) cm wide, sometimes absent immediately below involucre; involucres 1 per node (occasionally appearing clustered), campanulate, 4–6 mm long, (3) 4–8 mm wide, pilose or glabrous, the teeth 4–5, erect, 0.6–1 mm long; flowers 4–6 mm long, including a 0.1–0.2 mm long stipelike base, the perianth white to rose, pilose to villous with intermixed glandular hairs abaxially, the tepals monomorphic, obovate, the stamens exserted, 4–8 mm long, the filaments pilose proximally; achenes light brown to brown, 4–5 mm long, glabrous except for pilose beak.

• Leaf blades densely lanate to tomentose abaxially, mostly glabrous adaxially : Eriogonum pyrolifolium var. coryphaeum
• Leaf blades glabrous on both surfaces : Eriogonum pyrolifolium var. pyrolifolium