Herbs, matted, cespitose, pul-vinate, erect or spreading, some-times scapose, (0.3–)1–5 × 1–5(–8) dm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous, grayish or greenish to green. Stems matted to spreading, occasionally with persistent leaf bases, up to 1/4 or more height of plant; caudex stems matted or spreading; aerial flowering stems spreading to erect or nearly so, slender, rarely stout, solid, not fistulose, (0.4–)0.5–2(–2.5) dm, glabrous, floccose, or sparsely to densely tomentose to lanate. Leaves basal or more commonly sheathing 1–7(–15) cm up stem, 1 per node; petiole 0.2–2(–4) cm, tomentose to floccose; blade linear, oblanceolate, or spatulate to elliptic, (0.2–)1–10(–12) × 0.1–0.9(–1.2) cm, densely tomentose abaxially, less so to floccoseadaxially, margins plane or revolute, sometimes crenulate. Inflorescences cymose, subumbellate, umbellate, or capitate, (1–)3–10(–25) × (0.7–)1–10(–15) cm; branches dichotomous, sometimes absent, tomentose to floccose or glabrous; bracts 3, triangular, scalelike, 1–3(–5) mm. Peduncles absent or erect, 0.3–3 cm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous. Involucres 1 per node or 3–7(–9) per cluster, turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, 1.5–4(–5) × (1–)1.5–3(–3.5) mm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous; teeth 5, erect to spreading, 0.3–1 mm. Flowers (1–)2–4 mm; perianth various shades of white to cream or yellow, glabrous or pubescent; tepals connate proximal 1/4–1/3, mono-morphic, lanceolate, oblong to obovate or ovate to oval; stamens exserted, 2–4 mm; filaments pilose basally. Achenes light brown to brown, 2–3 mm, glabrous except for roughened to papillate beak.