Perennial herb with a few basal leaves and leafy annual stems, 40–85 cm high, from a small vertical woody rootstock; stems solitary, sparsely hispid with spreading and ascending hairs. Leaves subsessile, oblanceolate or broadly so, 6.5–15(–26) cm long, 2–5(–7) cm wide, cuneate to attenuate into a petioloid base, the very base clasping and ± sheathing the stem, crenate-serrate or serrulate, acute, sparsely scabridulous. Glomerules 1–2 cm in diameter, numerous in lax thysoid compound cymes; inflorescence branches slender, ascending, bearing elliptic reduced leaves at the nodes; outer bracts of glomerules 2–5, broadly ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, 0.7–1.2 cm long; involucre to 10 mm long; phyllaries 8, lanceolate, acute, 6.5–9.5 mm long. Corolla white, 5–6 mm long, glabrous. Achenes 3–4 mm long, 10-ribbed, finely ascending-pubescent; pappus of 5–6 setae expanded at the very base, 4–5 mm long.
