Perennials, 20–80 cm; rhizomes 3–20 cm. Stems 1–5+, erect, green to brown beneath hairs, simple, silvery-sericeous (hairs irregularly anastomosing-cohering). Leaves: basal sessile, blades linear to lanceolate, grasslike, longer or shorter than cauline, 80–250(–400) × 2–20 mm, faces densely silvery-sericeous (hairs irregularly anastomosing-cohering); cauline 20–60, sometimes crowded, spreading to ascending, linear or lanceolate to ovate, usually reduced distally, apices acute, faces silvery-sericeous; distalmost sometimes greatly reduced. Heads (2–)10–100+, in corymbiform to sometimes paniculiform arrays. Peduncles 1–10 cm, sericeous; bracts and bracteoles 3–20, appressed, often grading into phyllaries. Involucres turbino-campanulate, 5–13 mm (usually shorter than pappi). Phyllaries in 4–6 series, margins fimbriate, piloso-ciliate, faces sparsely to moderately pilose (hairs often twisted), often more densely so distally, sometimes stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 9–13; laminae 4–14 mm. Disc florets 15–50; corollas 4–9 mm, limb bases glabrate to sparsely pilose or rarely limbs moderately long-pilose; lobes 0.5–0.8 mm, glabrous to sparsely pilose. Cypselae fusiform, 2.5–4.5 mm, strigose; pappi: outer scales 0.4–0.9 mm, inner 25–45 bristles 5–9 mm.
