Erect to subscandent shrubs or small trees to 6 m high, with few to many branches; stems pale-brownish, often paler in older parts, terete to slightly hexagonal, distinctly striate, pubescence flocculose, becoming glabrous. Leaves opposite; blades ovate to broadly ovate, to 25 cm long and 15 cm wide, the base cuneate to truncate, parallel to the long basal secondary veins, the margins usually closely serrate to crenulate, the apex slightly to sharply short-acuminate, the surfaces with sparse weak puberulence, becoming glabrous, flocculose below on veins, the venation subpinnate with 2 pairs of secondary veins in the basal 1/6, the second pair usually more ascending; petioles to 8 cm long. Inflorescence pyra-midally paniculate with densely corymbose branches and branchlets, the branches puberulous to flocculose, the ultimate branches 0-2 mm long. Heads 8-10 mm high with 8-12 florets; involucral bracts ca. 25-30, imbricate to subimbricate, in 5-6 series, 1-6 mm long and 1.0-1.5 mm wide, ovate to narrowly oblong, the apex rounded, the surface papyraceous to coriaceous with ca. 4 usually broad or indistinct costae, glabrous to finely puberulous; corolla whitish, 4-5 mm long, tubular, glabrous, the lobes ca. 0.5 mm long, narrowly oblong; style branches filiform, not broadened distally. Achenes 2.0-3.0 mm long, with narrow ribs, nearly glabrous to sparsely puberulous, the achene base slightly to greatly narrowed with a distinct broad carpopodium; pappus of 35-40 slender bristles, mostly 4.5-5.5 mm long, the bases not or scarcely angled, mostly terete, the tips not or scarcely broadened.
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