Annual herb, up to 200 mm high. Stems branched from base, minutely glandular and hairy, beetroot-red. Leaves in a basal rosette or alternate upwards, petiolate, uppermost sessile; blade obovate in outline, pinnatifid, up to ± 30 x 10 mm, lobes oblong, smaller upwards and passing into uppermost linear leaves with entire or sometimes denticulate margins. Heads up to 20 mm in diameter, radiate, solitary on short leafy peduncles, axillary and terminal. Involucral bracts ± 3-seriate, equalling disc florets, narrowly ovate, coarse spreading hairs particularly on midline. Receptacle epaleate. Flowers: ray florets female, fertile, mauve or white; disc florets bisexual, yellow; Oct., Feb. Fruits with cypsela straw-coloured, densely hairy and glandular-hairy, obovate, compressed. Pappus bristles barbellate, biseriate, outer row much shorter than inner.
Perennial, prostrate or decumbent, harshly hairy herb, 0.04-0.20 m long, plant reddish. Leaves alternate, pinnatifid, lobes oblong, sometimes dentate, basal and lower petiolate. Capitula radiate, solitary on short leafy peduncles, axillary and terminal; involucral bracts coarsely hairy. Ray florets mauve or white. Disc florets yellow. Flowering time Jan.-Mar. Pappus of outer short and inner long, barbellate bristles. Cypselae obovate, compressed, black, hairy.