Small wirelettuce, skeletonplant

Annuals, 10–200 cm (taproots relatively large). Stems single, branches divaricately or freely spreading, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Leaves withered at flowering; basal blades linear to oblanceolate, runcinate, 3–10 cm, margins pinnately lobed; cauline much reduced, bractlike . Heads borne singly or clustered along branches or in paniculiform arrays. Peduncles 2–10 mm (along branches), or 10–40 mm (in paniculiform arrays). Calyculi of appressed or reflexed bractlets (glabrous, pubescent, or stipitate-glandular). Involucres 5–7 mm (glabrous, puberulent, or densely stipitate-glandular). Florets 5–11. Cypselae light tan to dark brown, 2.1–6.8 mm, faces smooth to tuberculate, grooved; pappi of 5–24 tan or white bristles (falling or widened bases persistent, bases connate in groups of 2–4 distal portions breaking off), plumose on distal 50–85%. 2n = 16.

Subspecies 5 (5 in the flora): w United States, nw Mexico.