branched, tomentose, the branches slender; leaves linear-involute, slender, mucronate, spirally twisted and squarrose-recurved, loosely woolly, in age denuded; axils mostly nude; heads in globose or oblong, subdecurrent glomerules or spikes; outer inv. scales very short, woolly; inner pale horn-colour or yellowish, rigid, straight, lance-acuminate, longer than the flower; corolla-lobes short, erect; pappus of many plumes, without annulus. 12–18 inches high, much or little branched, variably, but generally, copiously woolly-canescent. Leaves 3–4 lines long, very squarrose. Inflorescence varying from a nearly globose glomerule to an oblong, or cylindrical, or interrupted spike. Next S. incana, but with much less taper-pointed and paler inv. scales, and (so far as I can see) no annulus to the pappus.