Perennial herb or small shrub with annual shoots 0.6-3 m high from a woody rootstock; stems erect, somewhat woody proximally, green with reddish purple tinge, laxly pubescent with fine crispate or spreading or ascending hairs. Leaves opposite or rarely in whorls of 3, subsessile, ovate or elliptic, 4-20 cm long, 1.6-8 cm wide, base cuneate to rounded to cordate and slightly semi-amplexicaul, margins serrate with callose-tipped teeth, apex acute, finely strigose-hispid above, finely sparsely strigose to densely tomentose beneath. Capitula numerous in more or less congested terminal and upper axillary compound corymbiform cymes; stalks of individual capitula 1-10 mm long, densely pubescent with ascending and spreading or crispate hairs; involucres ovoid, campanulate, 4-7 mm long, 3-6 mm in diameter; phyllaries 3-seriate, (narrowly) ovate, apiculate, pubescent and darker towards the apex, with paler membranous margins, the inner tipped with red, fimbriate-pectinate on the upper margins and 3.5-6 mm long. Corolla purple or pale mauve, 4-7 mm long, sparsely glandular, lobes 2-2.5 mm long. Achenes pale brown, 1-1.8 mm long, 4-7-ribbed, with dense glands in between the ribs, glabrous; pappus of few bristles 1.3-2 mm long.
