Heads campanulate, largest mostly 2–2.5 mm. Pistillate paleae collectively hidden by thick lanuginose indument. 2n = 26.

Flowering and fruiting early Mar–late Jun(–Aug). Open, barren to grassy, brushy, or wooded slopes, plains, often disturbed substrates, toward sw usually with extra moisture (playas, drainages, roadsides, urban areas); 10–1600 m; Ariz., Ark., Ga., La., N.Mex., Okla., S.C., Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora, Tamaulipas).

Variety verna occurs nearly throughout Texas inland from the coast, extending to northern Louisiana, central Oklahoma, and southern New Mexico. Some disjunct populations in southern Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina are known from disturbed habitats and may be introduced. Variety verna is known throughout the northern tier of states in mainland Mexico; it probably also occurs in the next tier south. Two collections of this variety collected in 1875 and 1903 are purportedly from southern California; one is mixed with other Californian Filagininae. These might represent introductions that did not persist, or accidental admixtures from other collections.