Erect branching annual herb 23-180 cm tall; stems with spreading and ascending crispate hairs. Leaves elliptic or slightly (ob-)ovate, 3.5-8.5 cm long, 0.5-2.2 cm wide, base cuneate or attenuate, margins serrulate to denticulate or subentire, apex obtuse to rounded, apiculate, shortly usually sparsely pubescent above, sparsely crispate-pubescent to sericeous-pubescent beneath. Capitula solitary and terminal on the branches, the upper part of the plant forming a lax corymbiform cyme; stalks of individual capitula stout, with dense ascending crispate sericeous indumentum; involucre obconic-turbinate, 7-10 mm in diameter at flowering time; receptacle concave, alveolate, fimbrillate or hairy, the outer and median phyllaries adnate to and arising from it; phyllaries 4-5-seriate, numerous, narrowly ovate and attenuate, often pungent, the outer and median keeled, the outer often recurving, the inner erect, 6.5-8 mm long, all rather densely ascending-pubescent and more or less purplish at the apex. Corolla purple, 8.5 mm long, lobes 2.3-2.5 mm long, hairy at the apex with multicellular hairs; styles purple. Achenes prismatic, 1.7-2.3 mm long, usually (3-)4-angled and ribbed, rarely obovoid with 4 main and 8 intermediate secondary ribs, glabrous; pappus 1.5-2.3 mm long, white, caducous. Fig. 31.
