It is endemic to California, where it is known from several locations around the San Francisco Bay Area and adjacent portions of the Sacramento Valley and North Coast Ranges.

Lessingia hololeuca is an annual herb varying in maximum size and shape from flat and just a few centimeters high to an erect 40 centimeters tall.

The flower heads appear singly or in crowded clusters.

Each head has a bullet-shaped involucre lined with woolly, purple-tipped phyllaries.

The fruit is an achene with a whitish pappus of bristles.