Perennial, shrubby below, much branched, about a foot high. Leaves narrowly runcinate or (in the variety) linear and entire, glabrous, glaucescent, sessile, more or less auriculate at the base, ranging up to 3 in. long. Capitula campanulate-oblong, dark, 3/8– 1/2 in. long, 20–25-flowered, actually or obsoletely tomentose and often black-setose at base, on short pedicels 2–3 together at the ends of the slender shoots. Inner involucral bracts about 8, linear, obtuse, nearly glabrous, somewhat compressed, smooth, about 10-striate, 1/10 in. long, drab-brown. Pappus 1/5 in. long, soft, white.