stem erect, herbaceous, puberulous or glabrous; branches rigid, striate, leafy, panicled upwards; leaves lyrate, the slender petiole with 2–4 pair of small, narrow, lance-linear, acuminate lobes, the terminal lobe very large, ovato-lanceolate or lanceolate, rigid, midribbed and penninerved, finely and sharply serrate, tapering to each end, glabrous, or the young ones flocculent; upper leaves small, sessile, inciso-pinnatifid below the middle; corymb branching, loosely many-headed, pedicels long, scaly; inv. calycled, of 10–12 oblong, acute, scales; disc-fl. 30–40; rays 8–10, spreading; achenes glabrous.VAR. β, gracilis; branches laxly leafy, slender; terminal leaf-lobes lanceolate, serrulate. Perennial, perhaps suffruticose at base. Branches 1–2 feet long. Leaves technically lyrate, but the terminal lobe is 2–3 inches long, 1/2–1 inch wide, and the lateral lobes, which are confined to the petiole, vary from 2–3 and from 5–12 lines long, and rarely exceed a line in width. Inv. scales dark-tipped. Rays pale.