Biennials, perennials, or subshrubs (perhaps flowering first year, usually short-lived), (10–)40–100 cm. Stems erect, usually whitish or stramineous, sometimes reddish or grayish, glabrous. Cauline leaf blades oval, ovate, obovate, or oblong to spatulate, oblanceolate, lanceolate, or linear, (10–)15–70 mm, lengths 2–5(–10) times widths, bases ± clasping, margins usually crenate to serrate (teeth mostly 3–6+ per cm, rounded to obtuse, resin-tipped), rarely entire, apices obtuse to acute, faces glabrous, strongly gland-dotted. Heads usually in open to crowded, corymbiform arrays, rarely borne singly. Involucres broadly urceolate to hemispheric or globose, 6–11 × 8–20+ mm. Phyllaries in 5–6 series, reflexed to spreading or appressed, filiform or linear to lance-linear or lance-subulate, apices usually looped to hooked, sometimes recurved to nearly straight, subterete to subulate, moderately to strongly resinous. Ray florets 0 or (12–)24–36(–40); laminae 8–14 mm. Cypselae whitish, stramineous, brown, or gray, 1.5–4.5 mm, apices smooth, coronate, or knobby, faces smooth, striate, or ± furrowed; pappi of 2–3(–8), straight or contorted to curled, smooth or barbellulate to barbellate, subulate scales or setiform awns 2.5–5.5 mm, shorter than disc corollas. 2n = 12.
