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.

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