Plants erect, 0.8–4 dm tall, glabrous or glandular and short-hispid, greenish, grayish, or reddish; stems with caudex absent, the aerial flowering stems prostrate to erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.1–0.5 dm long, glabrous or glandular and short-hispid; leaves basal and cauline; basal: petiole 0.05–0.3 cm long, hispid, the blade linear, (0.3) 1–3 (4) cm long, 0.05–0.3 cm wide, short-hispid, the margins plane or revolute, ciliate; cauline: sessile, the blade linear, 0.3–2.5 cm long, 0.05–0.3 cm wide, similar to basal blade; inflorescences cymose, open to diffuse, 4–25 cm long, 5–35 cm wide, the branches sparsely hispid to puberulent, internodes glandular, the bracts 3–6, semi-foliaceous, 2–10 mm long, 0.5–2 mm wide; peduncles erect, straight, filiform, 0.4–1.5 cm long, glabrous; involucres turbinate, 0.5–1 mm long, 0.4–0.8 mm wide, glabrous, the teeth 4, erect, 0.2–0.4 mm long; flowers 1.5–2.5 mm long, the perianth white with greenish to reddish midribs, becoming pinkish to rose, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, the tepals monomorphic, oblong, the stamens included, 0.5–2 mm long, the filaments usually glabrous; achenes brown to blackish, lenticular, 1.5–2.3 mm long, glabrous.

Flowering Jun-Sep. Sandy to gravelly, often granitic or pumice flats and slopes, sagebrush communities, oak, montane, and subalpine conifer woodlands; 1300–3400 m;