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Leaves opposite, sometimes 3-whorled, subsessile, sometimes shortly petiolate in older leaves, mostly 4–20 x 1.5–8 cm., elliptic to lanceolate, apex acute, base ± broadly cuneate, margins serrate to coarsely serrate-dentate, often double-serrate with small teeth alternating with larger teeth, teeth callose-tipped; lamina finely strigose-hispid on both surfaces, the lower surface sometimes also sparsely puberulous with hispid nerves.
Stems herbaceous becoming somewhat woody below, leafy, branching above, appressed puberulous or sometimes sparsely patent-hispid on upper stem and branches, glabrescent below; indumentum of short-stalked asymmetric, or 1-armed T-shaped hairs often intermixed with, or replaced by, long patent flagelliform hairs.
Phyllaries ± appressed-imbricate, scarious with ± broad subhyaline margins, puberulous-hispidulous to glabrescent, the outer from c. 1 mm. long, the inner to c. 6 mm. long, ovate to oblong-ovate or lanceolate, ± abruptly narrowed to a mucronulate apex, or shortly acuminate.
Achenes pale-brown, 1–1.8 mm. long, narrowly obovoid-oblong with 4–5 low, broad, ribs and narrower dark-brown densely gland-filled grooves in between, rounded above with a shallow apical depression, glabrous; pappus of a few very caducous barbellate setae to c. 2 mm. long.
Corollas mauve or purplish, 4–7 mm. long, limb funnel-shaped and deeply linear-lobed, sparsely glandular, otherwise glabrous.
Capitula small, numerous, ± densely clustered in corymbiform cymes; capitula stalks mostly 1–10 mm. long.
An erect bushy perennial herb or suffrutex, with annual stems 0.6–3 m. tall from a woody rootstock.
Involucres 4–7 x 3–6 mm., broadly campanulate to cyathiform.
