Annuals, 5–40 cm; herbage spicy-scented. Stems erect or ascending, glabrous or puberulent. Leaves linear to narrowly elliptic, 10–60 × 0.5–5.5 mm, margins with 1–4 pairs of setae, faces glabrous or puberulent (dotted on margins with round oil-glands ca. 0.5 mm). Heads borne singly or in open, cymiform arrays. Peduncles 20–65 mm. Involucres cylindric. Phyllaries distinct, narrowly oblong to oblong-obovate, 3.5–6 mm (dotted with 0–2, subterminal oil-glands plus 0–3 pairs of submarginal oil-glands). Ray florets 5; corollas 4–9 mm. Disc florets 7–12; corollas 3–4 mm (weakly 2-lipped). Cypselae 2.5–4 mm, strigillose to short-pilose; pappi of 0–3 awns 3–4 mm usually with a shorter crown. 2n = 24.

Flowering Jun–Nov. Deserts, grasslands, pine-oak-juniper woodlands, shrublands; 1000–2000 m; Ariz., N.Mex., Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora).

Hybrids of var. subnuda and Pectis papposa var. papposa are known from southeastern Arizona. In northern Mexico, hybrids occur between P. filipes and other Pectis species.