Compilation
Vernonia cruda

 Shrub or woody herb 1-4 m tall; in regularly burned areas with annual shoots from a thickened perennating root to 3 cm in diameter; stems pale or reddish brown, glandular, minutely ascending-pubescent with T-shaped hairs. Leaves petiolate or sessile, ovate or elliptic, 3-15 cm long, 1.8-7 cm wide, base rounded to cuneate and decurrent on to petiole or petioloid base, margins sinuate-serrate, apex shortly and obtusely acuminate, apiculate, thinly pubescent above and more strongly so beneath, ± glabrescent; petiole up to 1.8 cm long. Capitula usually numerous in copious compound corymbiform cymes; stalks of individual capitula 1-8 mm, densely tomentose; involucre obconical, somewhat spreading, 3-5 mm long; phyllaries 4-8-seriate, elliptic to (broadly) ovate, obtuse, minutely apiculate, finely pubescent, 1.5-4.3 mm long, with glandular apex, becoming caducous, the innermost falling first. Florets 4-9 per capitulum; corolla mauve, pale lilac or rarely white, 4-7 mm long, lobes 1.3-2 mm long, glabrous. Achenes 1.5-2.1 mm long, minutely glandular, glabrous or almost so, 4-7-ribbed, carpopodium large; outer pappus of narrow scales 0.5-0.8 mm long, inner pappus whitish, 3.2-5 mm long.