Annuals, biennials, or perennials, 20–70 cm. Stems erect, usually reddish, ± villous to hirtellous. Cauline leaf blades ovoid-oblong or spatulate to oblanceolate or lanceolate, 20–35(–85) mm, lengths 1.5–2.5 times widths, bases ± clasping, margins serrate to denticulate (teeth apiculate to setose), apices obtuse to acute, faces usually puberulous to scabridulous and little, or not at all, gland-dotted, sometimes glabrous. Heads in open, corymbiform arrays or borne singly. Involucres ± hemispheric, 7–11 × (10–)15–20 mm (often subtended by leaflike bracts). Phyllaries in 4–6 series, spreading to appressed, filiform or linear to lanceolate or oblanceolate, apices filiform to subulate, slightly recurved to nearly straight or incurved (usually scabridulous), scarcely to moderately resinous. Ray florets 17–30; laminae (usually more orange than yellow) 12–16 mm. Cypselae brownish, 2.5–3 mm, apices smooth or minutely coronate, faces smooth or striate; pappi of 2–4 straight, usually barbellulate to barbellate, sometimes smooth bristles 3–6 mm, slightly shorter than to ± equaling disc corollas.

Flowering Jun–Sep. Dry, rocky slopes, mesas; 1400–2800 m; N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Coahuila).