Perennials, to 150 cm (rhizomes stout, plants not colonial, roots fibrous). Leaves green, ovate to elliptic or deltate, pinnate to pinnatifid or lyrate-pinnatifid, herbaceous, faces moderately to densely hairy (hairs 1-seriate); basal petiolate, 25–70 × 8–45 cm, lobes 3–9, bases rounded to acute, apices acute; cauline petiolate or sessile, 12–50 × 5–40 cm, bases attenuate to cuneate, ultimate margins dentate to lobed, apices acute. Heads borne singly or (2–10) in ± corymbiform arrays. Phyllaries to 6 cm (foliaceous, faces scabrous). Receptacles columnar; paleae 5–7 mm, apices obtuse to acute, often apiculate, abaxial tips hairy. Ray florets 0. Discs 30–80 × 18–30 mm. Disc florets 300–500; corollas brown-purple, 4.2–5.8 mm; style branches ca. 2 mm, apices acute. Cypselae 3.5–5 mm; pappi of 4 scales, to 1 mm.

Rudbeckia occidentalis Nuttall var. alpicola (Piper) Cronquist

Holotype for Rudbeckia alpicola Piper
Catalog Number: US 529424
Collection: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany
Verification Degree: Card file verified by examination of alleged type specimen
Preparation: Pressed specimen
Collector(s): A. D. E. Elmer
Year Collected: 1898
Locality: Mt. Stewart, Cascades., Kittitas, Washington, United States, North America

Rudbeckia alpicola is known only from Chelan and Kittitas counties.