Herbs, erect or matted, sometimes scapose, 1-3.5 × 1-2 dm or 0.05-0.2 × 0.5-3.5 dm, floccose or silky-tomentose, grayish. Stems spreading or matted, occasionally with persistent leaf bases, up to 4 or more height of plant; caudex stems matted; aerial flowering stems erect or nearly so, slender, solid, not fistulose, 1-2 dm and floccose, or (0.1-)0.02-0.5(-0.65) dm and silky-tomentose. Leaves basal, 1 per node or fasciculate in terminal tufts; petiole 0.1-2.5(-3) cm, tomentose to floccose; blade lanceolate or oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 1-2.5(-3) × 0.3-0.5(-0.8) cm, or 0.4-1.2 × 0.1-0.3(-0.35) cm, densely white- or silvery-tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane.  Inflorescences capitate, subcapitate, umbellate-cymose, or cymose, 2-20 × 2-20 cm, floccose or, if matted, 0.3-1 × 0.3-1 cm; branches open and divided 1-3 times, 2-20 cm, floccose or if matted, (0-)0.3-0.85 cm, silky-tomentose; bracts 3, scalelike, triangular, (0.5-)1-3 mm. Peduncles absent or erect, slender, 2-15 mm, floccose. Involucres 1 per node or 2-5 per cluster, broadly campanulate, 1.5-4 × (2-)3-6(-8) mm, tomentose; teeth 5, erect to spreading, 1-1.5 mm. Flowers 2.5-5(-6) mm; perianth yellow, densely white-pubescent; tepals connate proximal 1/ 3, monomorphic, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate; stamens exserted, 3.5-5 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes brown to dark brown, 3-4 mm, villous to tomentose.

Varieties 3 (3 in the flora): w United States.

The Navajo or Diné people consider Eriogonum lachnogynum to be a “life medicine,” making a concoction of shredded roots for the treatment of internal, and some external, ailments. It is often given for diarrhea.