Herb or vine to 3 m tall; stems evenly striate and pubescent with dense, short, weak, brownish spreading hairs. Leaves to 10 cm long, subsessile, elliptical, basally acute, apically slightly acuminate and mucronate, the margins subentire with toothlike, callose mucros, with ca. 6 ascending pinnate veins on each side of the midvein, obscure above, finely reticulate and lighter beneath, pubescent on both sides, above with short scattered hairs, beneath with weak, granular spreading hairs most plentiful on the veins. Inflorescence a terminal or axillary, congested or open panicle to 30 cm across; peduncle puberulent, the pedicels to 15 mm long, filiform; bracteoles scalelike. Heads white, disciform; involucral bracts imbricate in about 3 unequal series, stramineous, the innermost lanceolate, glabrous, 4 mm long, the outer series mostly herbaceous, shorter, broader, densely pubescent, apically erose; receptacle flat, ca. 1 mm across, naked, muricate; outer florets 4-5 mm long, the corolla 2-2.5 mm long, capillary, apically forming a short, clasping ligule 1 mm long that reaches the base of the style branches, the tube pubescent upwards, pilose at the base of the ligule, the style branches exserted, ca. 1 mm long, flattened, lanceolate, dorsally finely glandular; inner florets ca. 5 mm long, the corolla crateriform, the tube ca. 1 mm long, pubescent overall, the limb basally pubescent, divided nearly to the base into 5 ensiform, marginally thickened lobes, the anthers 0.7 mm long, basally minutely auricled, the append-ages lanceolate, the style branches 0.8 mm long, exserted from the anther append-ages, fusiform, densely glandular-papillose, the ovary reduced (sterile). Achene flattened, 3 angles thickened by veins, densely pubescent; pappus of fine strigose bristles in one series, sometimes apically enlarged
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