Herbs, annual or biennial, 10-60 cm tall, taprooted. Stems erect, solitary, branched only above, sparsely to densely strigose, stipitate glandular upward. Leaves strigose, with sessile glands; basal leaves rosulate, withered by anthesis; cauline leaves remote; lower cauline leaves shortly winged petiolate; blade oblanceolate, oblong, or spatulate, 2-10 × 0.5-1.6 cm, base attenuate to cuneate, margin entire or ± crenate, apex obtuse or rounded; middle leaves sessile, smaller, base sometimes ± rounded, margin often entire; upper leaves small, linear-oblanceolate or-oblong. Capitula solitary, terminal on branches, sometimes forming ± corymbiform synflorescences, 20-25 mm in diam. Involucres hemispheric, 1-1.5 cm in diam.; phyllaries 3-seriate, sometimes purplish tinged, subequal, linear or linear-lanceolate, 5-8 × 0.6-1.5 mm, abaxially sometimes scabrous or sparsely villous, ± stipitate glandular, margin scabrous-ciliate or glandular, outer phyllaries leaflike, inner phyllaries margin scarious. Ray florets 35-40, mauve or blue, tube 1.2-1.8 mm, glabrous or hairy, lamina 8-12 × 1.6-2.4 mm; disk florets yellow, 4.2-4.8 mm, tube 1-2 mm, glabrous or hairy, limb ± narrowly campanulate, lobes lanceolate, unequal, 0.5-1.5 mm, hairy. Achenes pale greenish brown to pale brownish mottled black or black mottled to black, obovoid, 2-2.8 mm, 2-ribbed marginally, sparsely strigose, sparsely apically glandular. Pappus of ray florets often few and short, sometimes absent or equaling that of disk, of disk 2-seriate, straw-colored or brownish, of unequal bristles 2.9-4.2 mm. Fl. and fr. May-Oct.
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