Plants erect, 1–6 (10) dm tall, 0.5–3 (5) dm across, woolly-floccose; leaves basal and cauline, the petiole 0.1– 0.5 (0.8) cm long, the leaf-blade linear to narrowly oblanceolate, (1) 1.5–5 cm long, 0.1–0.3 cm wide, thinly to densely floccose adaxially, densely tomentose abaxially; inflorescences strict, open, white to greenish; bracts usually 2, opposite, rarely in whorls of 3–5, foliaceous, short-petiolate, acerose, similar to proximal leaf blades only reduced, 0.3–3 cm long, 0.1–0.3 cm wide, the awns straight, 0.5–1 mm long; involucres usually congested in small terminal clusters of 1–3 at node of dichotomies, urceolate, ventricose basally, 6-ribbed, 3- angled, 3–4 mm long, not corrugate, tomentose to floccose or glabrate with age, greenish to brownish, the teeth 6, all of an equal length, spreading with a broad, conspicuous, white margins extending across sinuses, the awns uncinate, 0.7–1.5 mm long; flowers 1 (2), slightly exserted, the perianth white to rose, subcylindric, (1.5) 2.5–3 mm long, densely pubescent abaxially, the hypanthium 2/3 length of perianth, the tepals slightly dimorphic, entire and rounded apically, those of outer whorl obovate, those of inner whorl spatulate, the stamens 9, slightly exserted, the filaments distinct, adnate at base of hypanthium, 1.5–2.5 mm long, glabrous, the anthers pink to red, oval, 0.2–0.3 mm long; achenes brown, globose, 2.5–3 mm long, the embryo curved; 2n = 38, 40, (42), 80, 82, 84.

Flowering Apr–Jul. Sandy to gravelly or rocky flats and slopes, mixed grassland and chaparral communities, oak-pine woodlands; 40–1400 (1600) m; widespread and often locally common in the Coast Ranges of southwestern Oregon (Jackson Co.) and California and on the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada south to the Transverse Ranges and the Tehachapi Mountains in Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Kern, Lake, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, Ventura and Yolo cos.