It grows in desert and scrub habitat, often in areas with alkali soils among plants such as shadscale.

It is a low, flat or mounding plant with spreading, hairy, scaly stems.

The irregularly rounded leaf blades are up to 1.6 centimeters long with wavy or toothed edges.

It is lined with hairy gray-green phyllaries with dull points that curve outward.

The fruit is an achene covered densely in long hairs and tipped with a large pappus of bristles.