Plants 10–30(–40) cm. Basal leaves: blades silvery, lanceolate or lance-ovate, 9–30 × 2–7 cm (1-pinnatifid, lobes oblong to oblanceolate, 5–35 × 3–17 mm), bases cuneate, ultimate margins usually entire (plane or weakly revolute, obscurely, if at all, ciliate), apices rounded to acute, faces densely sericeous. Heads borne singly. Involucres campanulate to hemispheric, 11–20+ mm diam. Outer phyllaries broadly ovate to triangular-ovate, 12–20 mm, slightly surpassing inner, apices acuminate to attenuate (margins not ciliate). Ray laminae 15–20 mm (adaxially puberulous on veins).

Flowering Apr–May. Serpentine outcrops, among surface rocks, in crevices, hillsides, dry streamsides among cobbles; 400–1800 m; Calif., Oreg.

Balsamorhiza sericea hybridizes with B. deltoidea.