Locally abundant in grassland on the Sierran East slope only--Carson Valley, Sierra Valley, Honey Lake area, etc. The late 19th-Century collector C. F. MacGlashan did not record it around Truckee, but in the 1970s-80s it was abundant along Cold Stream and on benches along the Truckee River. It went extinct around Truckee in the late 1990s for no obvious reason. During the lifetime of this project it has briefly colonized Castle Valley (below Castle Peak) and gone extinct again; it strays erratically to Donner Pass but has not been known to breed there.

This very pale-colored Ringlet is still abundant in foothill woodland, breeding in grassland intermittently up to 5000', but seems to be in precipitous decline in the Sacramento Valley where it went extinct at North Sacramento and is "on the edge" in Rancho Cordova. There are two very different-looking broods. The spring brood (March-May) is somewhat silvery above and the basal half of the hindwing is intemnsely melanized below (for thermoregulation, we assume).