An erect slender perennial herb 0.8–2 m. tall; tuberous-rooted from a small woody rootcrown; tubers up to 5 x 1.5 cm., fusiform. Stems 1-several, becoming woody below, divaricately branched above, leafy, subterete, puberulous with white curly hairs, especially on the branches, glabrescent below; branches purplish. Leaves very shortly petiolate, up to c. 17 x 5.5 cm., largest on lower stem, decreasing in size up the stem, oblanceolate; apex rounded-obtuse on lower cauline leaves, becoming acute in upper leaves; tapering below to a narrow, abruptly rounded or truncate base ending in a 1–2 mm. long glabrescent petiole; margin entire towards the leaf base, becoming repand-denticulate to serrate-dentate in the upper part, the teeth callose-tipped; lamina thinly subcoriaceous, glabrescent on the upper surface, somewhat paler and puberulous on the lower surface, sometimes glabrescent. Capitula numerous, sessile or subsessile, scorpioidly cymose, the capitula secund on laxly subumbellate branches. Involucres 8–10 mm. long and 8–10 mm. wide, obconic to campanulate-obconic. Phyllaries many-seriate, appressed imbricate, increasing uniformly in length to the inside, ± coriaceous with hyaline margins and purple tips, thinly woolly outside and densely ciliate on the margins; the outer phyllaries broadly ovate, the inner oblong-lanceolate, mucronulate. Florets c. 18 per capitulum; corollas purple or whitish-mauve, up to c. 12 mm. long, narrowly tubular, slightly widened above the middle, glabrous. Achenes up to c. 3.5 mm. long, subcylindric, tapering slightly below, densely strigose; outer pappus of c. 2 mm. long bristles; inner of copious barbellate setae up to c. 9 mm. long.
