Plants 10–100 cm; in lax clones, eglandular; rhizomes elongate or short, filiform or cordlike, herbaceous, remotely scaly. Stems 1, erect, straight, often reddish, simple, glabrous or glabrescent to sparsely villous proximally, villous distally. Leaves cauline, rugose-veined, margins ± revolute, ± remotely, ± deeply serrate, scabrous, teeth ± indurate (mucronate), apices mucronulate, abaxial faces scabrous, adaxial ± villous, particularly on veins (increasingly so distally); proximalmost withering by flowering, winged-petiolate, petioles equaling or longer than blades, bases ± sheathing, sometimes marcescent, blades spatulate to oblanceolate, 10–42 × 3–8 mm, sometimes reduced, smaller than mid, bases attenuate to cuneate, apices obtuse to acute; mid sessile, lanceolate, oblanceolate, or narrowly obovate to narrowly elliptic or elliptic, (23–)30–115 × 5–36 mm, gradually reduced distally, bases tapering or rounded to ± auriculate-clasping (often narrowed above base), apices acute to acuminate; distal (arrays) sessile, (6–)10–40 × 2–7 mm. Heads 1–25+ in open corymbiform arrays or borne singly. Peduncles ± densely villous; bracts 0–2, sometimes subtending heads. Involucres campanulate, 5.5–9 mm, shorter than pappi. Phyllaries 30–50 in 4–5 series, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, seldom ovate (outer), lanceolate to linear-lanceolate (inner), strongly unequal, membranous, bases indurate, rounded (outer), green zones full-width, occasionally purplish (inner), in distal 1 / 2 (outer; rarely 2 / 3 and foliaceous) to less than 1 / 6 and paler or none (inner), margins hyaline (seldom purplish), narrowly scarious, ± erose, densely ciliate, apices usually appressed, often squarrose, usually acute, sometimes obtuse, mucronulate, faces glabrous or sparsely strigillose. Ray florets 13–30; corollas pale blue-violet, 10.5–15 × 1.4–2 mm. Disc florets 37–72; corollas yellow, 4.5–6 mm, slightly ampliate, 4.8–5.8 mm, tube lengths about twice funnelform throats (2.7–3.4 mm), lobes erect, lanceolate, 0.6–1 mm. Cypselae tawny to stramineous, fusiform to cylindro-obconic, slightly compressed, 2.7–3.5 mm, ribs 8–18 (stramineous or reddish brown), ± crowded, faces glabrous; pappi of pale cinnamon bristles 4.5–5.2 mm, shorter than disc corollas. 2n = 18.
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