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Annual or biennial herb, becoming slightly woody at the base, erect, simple or branched, 0.2–1 m high; taproot straight and slender; stems and branches tomentellous, winged with entire pubescent wings 0.5–2 mm wide. Leaves grey-green, oblong to spatulate, sessile, 1–4.5 cm long, 0.2–0.9 cm wide (to 7 by 1.8 cm for basal leaves in Madagascar), base decurrent into stem wings, margin entire or irregularly denticulate, apex obtuse or rounded, pubescent and sometimes scabridulous. Capitula 2–5 mm long, grouped 5–12 in dense glomerules of 8–10 mm across, axillary and sessile to distal leaves or terminal and sessile, the whole forming a lax leafy panicle; receptacle subglobose, with aristate and plumose paleae 2.5–3 mm long; phyllaries pale green, 2–3-seriate, lanceolate, the innermost longer and more linear, to 2–3.2 mm long, ciliate and pubescent. Outer florets white, many, female, filiform, 1.6–2 mm long, minutely 2–3-dentate distally; style shortly bifid, 1.8–2.5 mm long; inner florets dull dark red or dull purple, 2–4, narrowly infundibuliform, tube 1.7–1.9 mm long, glabrous, lobes 0.2–0.4 mm long, pilose and glandular beneath; anthers 1–1.2 mm long, briefly sagittate and with short distal appendages; style 2.3–2.7 mm long with ?connate arms. Achenes cylindrical, often compressed, 0.8–1 mm long, slightly 4-ribbed, but often sterile and stipe-like in inner florets, puberulous; pappus of white barbellate bristles, ± 2.5 mm long. Fig. 81 (page 392).