Plants herbs, spreading, annual, (0.5) 1–4 dm tall, glabrous, glaucous, greenish to grayish; stems with caudex absent, the aerial flowering stems erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.4–0.8 dm long, glabrous; leaves basal, the petioles 1–3 cm long, mostly floccose, the blades subcordate to orbiculate, (0.5) 1–2.5 cm long and wide, densely white-tomentose abaxially, less so to subglabrous and grayish to greenish adaxially, the margins plane; inflorescences cymose, open, spreading, (5) 10–20 cm long, 5–20 cm wide, the branches glabrous, glaucous, the bracts 3, scalelike, 1–2 mm long, 0.5–1 mm wide; peduncles deflexed (Great Basin phase) or curving and ascending upward (Snake River phase), straight or slightly curved, slender, 0.3–1.5 cm long, glabrous; involucres narrowly turbinate, (1.5) 2–3 mm long, 0.5–1.5 mm wide, glabrous, the teeth 5, erect, 0.4–0.8 mm long; flowers 2–2.5 mm long, the perianth white to pink with greenish to reddish midribs, becoming pinkish to reddish, glabrous, the tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl oblong or obovate, those of inner whorl ovate, the stamens included, 1.5–2 mm long, the filaments glabrous; achenes brown, trigonous, 1.5–2 mm long, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Flowering May-Sep. Sandy to gravelly flats, slopes, and washes, saltbush, greasewood, sagebrush, and mountain mahogany communities, pinyon-juniper woodlands; 1100–2500 m; mainly in northern Nevada (Churchill, Eureka, Lander, and Pershing cos.) with scattered populations in the Elko area of Elko Co., and near Ione in Nye Co., and in southwestern Idaho (Canyon, Owyhee, and Twin Falls cos.) west through the Harper area of Malheur Co., Oregon, to near Buchanan in eastern Harney Co. with disjunct populations in and around Rome in Malheur Co., Oregon.