Plants prostrate to spreading, 0.2-0.8(-1) × 0.5-4(-6) dm, strigose. Leaves basal; petiole 0.5-2(-3.5) cm; blade oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, 0.5-2.5(-4) × 0.2-0.6(-1.2) cm, thinly pubescent. Inflorescences with involucres in small, open clusters 0.3-1 cm diam., greenish or grayish to reddish; bracts 2, sessile, usually leaflike, oblanceolate to elliptic, 0.5-1.5 cm × 1.5-7 mm, gradually reduced and becoming scalelike at distal nodes, linear, aciculate, acerose, 0.1-0.5 cm × 1-2 mm, awns straight, 0.4-1 mm. Involucres 3-5, greenish or grayish to reddish, urceolate, slightly ventricose basally, 1.5-2 mm, corrugate, without scarious or membranous margins, pubescent; teeth widely spreading to divergent or recurved, equal, 0.5-1.5 mm or 1-3 mm; awns uncinate or straight, unequal, alternating 0.5-1.5 mm and 0.2-0.5 mm. Flowers slightly exserted; perianth bicolored with floral tube greenish white and tepals white, cylindric, 2.5-3 mm, sparsely pubescent; tepals connate 2/ 3 their length, slightly dimorphic, those of outer whorl oblong to oblong-ovate, 1.5 times longer than those of inner whorl, rounded, erose or rarely some entire to denticulate apically, those of inner whorl linear-oblanceolate, acute, entire or denticulate apically; stamens 9, included; filaments distinct, 2-2.5 mm, glabrous; anthers white, ovate, 0.2-0.3 mm. Achenes brown, globose-lenticular, 2.5-3 mm.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): California.