Perennials (sometimes flowering first year; ± taprooted). Proximal leaves mostly alternate; blades linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate, pinnately lobed (usually beginning in proximal part of leaf, lobes 5-7), ultimate margins entire or laciniately toothed (teeth 1-5), serrate, or entire, revolute, abaxial faces woolly, adaxial less so or glabrate. Heads 2-6 per array or borne singly. Peduncles mostly 10-30 cm. Involucres 10-15 mm diam. Ray florets usually 10-13(-15), rarely 0; laminae 10-20 mm. Cypselae (2.4-)2.5-3.5(-4) mm; pappi (0.5-)0.8-1.2(-2) mm. 2n = 16, 32, 48, 64. Flowering Apr-Jun. Dry sites, grasslands, lower montane forests; 30-1300 m; Calif., Oreg.; Mexico (probably extinct). Edward Palmer collected an eriophyllum believed to represent variety grandiflorum on Guadalupe Island, Mexico, in 1875. It was last reported in 1893 and is presumed extirpated by goats (R. V. Moran 1996).

L. Constance (1937) observed that var. grandiflorum merges with var. croceum at higher elevations. We have noted that the two taxa can occur side by side and maintain their identities where ploidy level differs.