Herbs, erect to spreading, perennial, 1-6 dm, glabrous, often glaucous, grayish. Stems: caudex compact to spreading; aerial flowering stems erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.4-4 dm, glabrous, often glaucous. Leaves basal or sheathing up stem 3-8 cm; petiole 0.4-4 cm, tomentose; blade elliptic to deltoid or ovate to suborbiculate or orbiculate, 0.3-3 × 0.2-3 cm, densely white-tomentose and grayish on both surfaces, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose, open, erect to spreading, 5-40 × 5-40 cm; branches glabrous; bracts 3, scalelike, 1-3 × 0.5-2 mm. Peduncles erect or spreading, straight, slender, 0.6-6 cm, glabrous. Involucres turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, 2-4 × 1.5-3(-4) mm, glabrous but tomentose adaxially; teeth 5, erect or nearly so, 0.5-1 mm. Flowers 1.5-3.5 mm; perianth white to pink with greenish to reddish midribs, becoming pinkish or orange-brown to red, glabrous; tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl ovate to obovate or cordate to suborbiculate, those of inner whorl narrowly oblong to oblong; stamens included, 1-1.5 mm; filaments sparsely pilose proximally. Achenes light brown to brown, 3-gonous, 2-3 mm, glabrous.

Varieties 3 (3 in the flora): c North America, including Mexico.