Annuals or biennials, 30-60(-80) cm; taprooted. Stems (1+ from base, erect to ascending) loosely tomentose, not glandular. Leaf blades (crowded, internodes usually 1-5, sometimes to 10 mm) oblong to narrowly oblanceolate or subspatulate, 2-8(-9.5) cm × 2-5(-10) mm (smaller distally, narrowly lanceolate to linear), bases subclasping, usually not decurrent, sometimes decurrent 1-2 mm, margins flat or slightly revolute, faces concolor, loosely and persistently gray-tomentose, not glandular. Heads in terminal glomerules (1-2 cm diam.). Involucres subglobose, 4-6 mm. Phyllaries in 4-5 series, whitish (often yellowish with age, hyaline, shiny), ovate to oblong-obovate, glabrous. Pistillate florets 160-200. Bisexual florets [8-]18-28. Cypselae weakly, if at all, ridged (otherwise smooth or papillate-roughened, glabrous, without papilliform hairs; pappus bristles loosely coherent basally, released in clusters or easily fragmented rings). 2n = 28. Flowering Mar-Oct. Sandy fields, streamsides, washes, swales, dunes, chaparral slopes, roadsides, fields, disturbed places, moist disturbed places; 10-1600 m; B.C.; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., Okla., Oreg., S.C., Tex., Utah, Va., Wash., Wyo.; Mexico; South America. Pseudognaphalium stramineum is probably native from South America to western North America; it is adventive in sandy fields on the Atlantic coastal plain, where it flowers May-Aug.

Plant: Annual forb 20-60 cm; herbage woolly Leaves: leaves alternate, narrow, entire, decurrent with adnate auricles Flowers: flowers yellowish, outer flowers pistillate, inner flowers hermaphrodite; pappus of capillary bristles. Notes: Phyllaries scarious. References: Kearney & Peebles; Arizona Flora. McDougall; Seed plants of Northern Arizona. ASU specimans