[1] It is native to the western United States from the Sierra Nevada of California east to Utah, where it grows in the forests and meadows of high mountains.

It is a perennial herb growing from a taproot and producing one or more stems to 30 centimeters in length.

The stems are decumbent or upright, reddish, and hairless to slightly woolly.

They are thick and leathery, lance-shaped with large sawteeth along the edges, often center-striped in white, and measure up to 10 centimeters long.

The inflorescence is usually a single flower head lined with centimeter-long phyllaries which are reddish to green with red edges.