Shrubs, 50-150 cm tall. Stems many branched; old branches ascending, bark reddish-to gray-brown, branched, striate; second-and third-year branches purple-brown or ferruginous, leaf scars and axillary buds prominent; current-year branches densely leafy, reddish, moderately strigose. Leaves gradually smaller distally, shortly petiolate (petiole 1.5-3 mm); blade dark green, shiny (more so adaxially), ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, 2.5-7 × 0.5-1.6 cm, subleathery, glabrous except adaxial veins hispidulous proximally, midvein abaxially prominent, triplinerved, base cuneate, margin revolute, entire, strigose-ciliate, apex acute, mucronulate. Capitula at ends of second-year axillary branches, 3-10 in corymbiform synflorescences, 2.5-3 cm in diam.; peduncles slender, 2.5-4 cm, with small basal leaves and scattered, linear bracts, strigose (dark crosswalls), distally denser. Involucres campanulate, 6-7 × 7-8 mm; phyllaries 3-seriate, unequal, linear-lanceolate, midvein distally not swollen, translucent, apex acuminate; outer phyllaries 4-5 × ca. 0.5 mm, distally green, sparsely hairy proximally, margin narrowly scarious; inner phyllaries subequal, 5-6 × ca. 1 mm, margin scarious, erose, distally green, sometimes tips purplish, midvein translucent, dark bordered. Ray florets 23-30, purple, tube sparsely hairy, lamina ca. 13 × 1-2 mm, glabrous, eglandular; disk florets yellow, 5-6 mm, tube apex and proximal limb sparsely hairy, limb narrowly campanulate, 3.5-4 mm, proximally hairy, eglandular, lobes spreading to recurved, triangular, ca. 1.5 mm. Achenes obovoid, 2-3 mm, sparsely strigillose, darkly 4-veined. Pappus 3-seriate, dirty white; outer slender bristles 0.5-1 mm; inner bristles unequal, 3.5-4 mm, acute or sometimes innermost ± clavate. Fl. Feb-May.
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