It is native to most of the mountain ranges of northern California and their extensions into Oregon and Nevada.

This is a low-lying perennial with a woody caudex spreading to about 40 centimeters in maximum width.

It forms a patch of round, paddle-shaped, woolly, gray-green leaves one to twenty centimeters wide in rocky areas.

Each flower is less than a centimeter wide, petals united in a 5-fold cup, and may be cream to yellowish or pink with red stripes.

On level ground the flowerheads surround the cluster of basal leaves; on a hillside they all droop downhill.