Leaves 1-3 cm, reduced distally to bracts 0.5-5 mm. Heads 10-150+. Calyculus bractlets 0.5-1+ mm. Principal phyllaries 3-5 mm after flowering. Corollas 1.5-2 mm. Cypselae 2.5-3.5 mm; pappi: longest bristles 2-3 mm. 2n = 14. Flowering Mar-Jun. Sandy, gravelly, or clay soils, desert washes and open slopes to sagebrush-juniper steppes; 20-1900 m; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Nev., Oreg., Tex., Utah; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora).

Plant: Annual, 1-4 dm; sap milky; stems slender, generally openly much-branched, sparsely glandular-puberulent Leaves: basal, 2-4 cm, oblanceolate, entire to pinnately lobed, ciliate, otherwise glabrous, often early-deciduous; cauline few, reduced, upper scale-like INFLORESCENCE: primary inflorescence a head, each resembling a flower; heads ligulate, many, in open panicles; peduncles very slender; involucre cylindric, 4-5 mm; phyllaries in 2 series, outer 2-3, < 1 mm, inner 3-4, 4-5 mm, lanceolate; receptacle naked Flowers: 3-4; ligules light pink or white, readily withering Fruit: 3-4 mm, cylindric, 5-ribbed, white; pappus of fine bristles, 2-4 mm, white Misc: Desert canyons and valleys, juniper woodlands; < 1850 m.; Mar-May