Erect and bushy or more commonly straggling or scrambling perennial (?), 0.3–6 m, younger branches densely pilose to thickly yellowish-tomentose or pannose, more thinly pilose with age, nodes swollen. Leaves broadly ovate to broadly elliptic-oblong, 3.5–12 x 2.5–8 cm, shortly cuneate to subcordate at the base, shortly acuminate above, moderately appressed-pilose above, densely pilose to velutinous below especially along the nerves; petiole 1–2.25 cm. Inflorescence a dense globose (occasionally laxer, oblong and lobed) head, of congested lateral compound cymes on a short axis, c. 1.75–2.5 cm in flowering diam., enlarging to form a large burr up to 4 cm in fruit, peduncle 0.6–4(–10) cm; ultimate divisions of cymes mostly a central fertile flower subtended by two triads of a fertile and two sterile modified flowers, but variable. Tepals glabrous, acute, narrowly lanceolate; 2 outer 5–6.5 mm, 1-nerved, the arista often uncinately hooked; inner tepals shorter, 2–3-nerved, mucronate. Modified flowers of 2 uncinate-tipped bracteoliform processes and 2 shorter uncinate spines. Style slender, 1.75–2 mm. Capsule ovoid, 2–2.25 mm, membranous with a firm tip.
