It is native to southwestern North America, where it can be found in various areas of California, and parts of Arizona and northern Mexico.

It grows in open habitat in chaparral, woodlands, grasslands, desert, Sierra foothill, and inland canyons.

The fruit is an achene with a brown, gray, blue, or purple body tipped with a pappus of five long, spreading scales, the whole unit measuring 1 or 2 centimeters.

This species is suspected to be a hybrid between Microseris douglasii and Uropappus lindleyi which may have evolved independently, possibly three times.

[3] The plant comes in a wide variety of appearances with variations in florescence properties and size, as well as height, ranging on a scale between both of the suspected parent taxa.