Herbs, erect or spreading, annual, 0.5-6(-7) dm, hirsute, greenish, grayish, tawny, or reddish. Stems: caudex absent; aerial flowering stems prostrate to erect, solid, not fistulose, 0.1-1 dm, appressed-hirsute. Leaves basal and cauline; basal: petiole 0.5-6 cm, villous to hoary, blade oblong to obovate, 1-4 × 1-3 cm, villous to hoary-tomentose and greenish, tawny, or reddish on both surfaces, margins plane, occasionally crenulate; cauline sessile, blade linear, lanceolate, or narrowly obovate, 1-4 × 0.3-2 cm, similar to basal blade. Inflorescences cymose, open to diffuse, 5-40(-60) × 5-50 cm; branches hirsute; bracts 3-6, semileaflike, 2-10 × 1-3 mm. Peduncles ascending to erect, mostly straight, slender, 0.5-6 cm, villous to hoary-tomentose. Involucres broadly campanulate, 2-3 × 2-3 mm, villous-canescent; teeth 5, lobelike, usually reflexed, 4-6 mm. Flowers 3-4.5 mm; perianth white to pale yellow in early anthesis, becoming reddish or rose, glabrous; tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl orbiculate-cordate, those of inner whorl lanceolate to spatulate; stamens mostly exserted, 1.5-3.5 mm; filaments mostly pilose proximally. Achenes brown to dark brown, lenticular, 0.6-1 mm, glabrous. 2n = 40.
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