Annuals, biennials, or short-lived perennials, 20–60(–80) cm; usually fibrous-rooted, sometimes apparently taprooted, slender caudices simple or branched. Stems erect, sparsely to moderately strigose or loosely strigoso-villous or nearly glabrous, often also minutely glandular distally. Leaves basal (persistent) and cauline; blades oblanceolate to spatulate, 20–140 × 3–16 mm, cauline spreading, gradually reduced distally, margins usually entire, rarely serrate-dentate, faces glabrous or sparsely villoso-hirsute, distal sometimes also glandular. Heads 1 or 3–35 in corymbiform to thyrsiform arrays (peduncles curved-ascending). Involucres 5–11 × 8–22 mm. Phyllaries in 2–3(–4) series (often purplish, inner apices attenuate to caudate), glabrous or sometimes sparsely hirsute, minutely glandular. Ray (pistillate) florets in 2 series; outer 150–250, corollas white to pink or purplish, laminae 3–4.5 mm (filiform), erect; inner fewer than outer, corollas tubular, elaminate. Disc corollas 4.2–6.2 mm. Cypselae 2–2.4 mm, 2-nerved, faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of setae, inner of (18–)25–35 (accrescent) bristles. 2n = 18.
