Biennials or monocarpic perennials, 100–300 cm; taproots short with many slender, fibrous lateral roots. Stems usually 1, erect, glabrous to ± tomentose; branches many, usually restricted to distal part of stem, ascending. Leaves: blades oblong to elliptic, 10–60 × 5–20 cm, unlobed and merely spinulose to irregularly dentate or shallowly to deeply pinnatifid, lobes ± broadly triangular, separated by wide sinuses, obtuse to acute, sometimes coarsely toothed or lobed, main spines slender, 1–3 mm, faces thinly arachnoid, soon glabrescent; basal often present at flowering, petioles slender, ± winged; cauline progressively reduced, proximal petiolate, mid and distal sessile, long-decurrent; distalmost linear to narrowly elliptic, bractlike, spinulose to irregularly dentate or shallowly lobed. Heads many, in openly paniculiform arrays, borne singly at tips of peduncles. Peduncles slender, 1–15 cm. Involucres ovoid to hemispheric, 1–2 × 1–2 cm, thinly arachnoid, glabrate. Phyllaries in 8–9 series, strongly imbricate, green, lanceolate (outer) to linear (inner), abaxial faces with prominent glutinous ridge; outer and middle appressed, bodies entire, apices acute, spines spreading, slender, ca. 1 mm; apices of inner often flexuous, acuminate, flat, scabrid-ciliolate. Corollas white to pink-purple, 19–21 mm, tubes 9–10 mm, throats 4–4.5 mm, lobes 5–7 mm; style tips 2–3.5 mm. Cypselae brown, ca. 4.5 mm, apical collars stramineous, 0.2 mm; pappi 15–16 mm.
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