Shrubs, 25-70 cm. Stems single, greenish when young, becoming whitish to gray, fastigiately branched distal to middle (angled from leaf bases), glabrous or puberulent. Leaves ascending to appressed; blades linear or linear-oblong, 4-35 × 0.5-3 mm, flat or adaxially concave, margins ciliolate, midveins evident, often purplish, apices acute to acuminate, faces glabrous. Heads usually in cymiform to corymbiform arrays 0.5-7 cm wide, sometimes borne singly. Involucres obconic to cylindric, 10-15 × 4-6 mm. Phyllaries 20-25 in 4-5 series, in 5 vertical ranks, mostly tan, shiny, with green subapical patch, midnerves mostly evident on distal ¹ / 2 , keeled, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, 1-10 × 0.8-2.3 mm, unequal, mostly chartaceous, margins entire, narrowly scarious, apices acute to attenuate or acuminate, faces glabrous. Receptacles with 0-1 central awn ca. 0.5 mm. Ray florets 0. Disc florets 5; corollas 9-14 mm, glabrous, lobes 1-1.7 mm; style branches exserted, 4.1-4.6 mm, appendages narrowly triangular, 2-2.8 mm. Cypselae brownish, turbinate, 5-7 mm, sharply 4-angled, 5-8 ribbed, faces sparsely or rarely densely hairy; pappi yellowish tan, 9-12 mm. 2n = 18 [as Chrysothamnus pulchellus]. Flowering late summer-fall. Open high plains, especially in sandy sites; 1300-2400 m; Ariz., Colo., Kans., N.Mex., Okla., Tex., Utah; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila). Lorandersonia baileyi is often treated as a subspecies of L. pulchella. Phylogenetic analyses (R. P. Roberts and L. E. Urbatsch 2004) indicate that the two are not sister taxa.