It is native to western North America from Washington and Idaho to Baja California, where it grows in seasonally wet habitat, such as vernal pools.

[1] This is a small annual herb producing several stems just a few centimeters long which are coated in silvery or woolly fibers.

The inflorescence is a small, spherical flower head only about half a centimeter wide.

It is a cluster of several tiny woolly disc flowers surrounded by leaflike bracts but no phyllaries.

Each tiny flower is covered in a scale which is densely woolly with long white fibers, making the developing head appear cottony.