Authors:
with 10-20cm long, simple or few-branched pubescent stems from a creeping woody rootstock. Leaves ovate, 5-15mm long, grey-downy beneath, almost glabrous above. Flowerheads 2-3.5cm across, with membranous pale bracts 1.5-2cm long, usually tinted purple, and pink, sometimes very pale flowers 2-3cm in length, summer. California, on dry slopes amongst pines or chaparral, at 1200-1820m. Variable in leaf and flower size and overall pubescence, with several subspecies: M.n. subsp. tenuiflora has leaves to 1cm and flowers to 2cm long, at higher altitudes to 2450m, while in subsp. leptosiphon has the stems and leaves are covered with spreading woolly hairs.
