[2] It is native to western North America from Washington to Utah to Baja California, where it grows in many types of habitat, including chaparral, scrub, and coniferous forest.

[3][4] Agoseris retrorsa is a perennial herb forming a base of leaves about a number of erect, thick, wool-coated inflorescences up to half a meter in height.

The narrow leaves are linear to lance-shaped, and spearlike with curving toothlike lobes along the edges.

[2] The inflorescence bears a single flower head which is several centimeters wide when fully open.

It is lined with woolly, pointed phyllaries which are green, often with reddish purple longitudinal streaks or stripes.