Shrubs and subshrubs, spreading to rounded and occasionally erect, not scapose, (0.5-)1-20 × 2-25 dm, glabrous or occasionally floccose, sometimes scabrellous, greenish, infrequently grayish. Stems spreading or erect, without persistent leaf bases, up to 2 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect or nearly so, slender to stout, solid, not fistulose, 0.02-0.5 dm, thinly tomentose or glabrous. Leaves cauline, 1 per node, quickly deciduous; petiole 0.1-1.5 cm, floccose or glabrous; blade linear, oblanceolate or spatulate or elliptic, or oblong, (0.4-)1-2(-4) × 0.1-0.8 cm, tomentose to floccose or glabrous abaxially, floccose to thinly floccose or glabrous adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose or racemose, 1-25(-30) × 1-30(-35) cm; branches dichotomous, sometimes with secondaries suppressed, smooth or angled to ridged and grooved, glabrous or occasionally floccose or scabrous; bracts 3, scalelike, 0.3-2 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres 1 per node, narrowly turbinate or campanulate, 0.7-3 × 0.7-4 mm, glabrous, infrequently floccose; teeth 5, erect, 0.3-0.7 mm. Flowers (1.5-)2-4 mm; perianth white, yellowish white, pink, or reddish, glabrous; tepals connate proximal 4, dimorphic, those of outer whorl obovate to orbiculate, those of inner whorl narrowly lanceolate to oblong; stamens exserted, 2-5 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown to brown, 2-5 mm, glabrous.
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