Plants 10–70 cm, laxly cespitose (grayish green), eglandular; rhizomes elongate, slender, woody. Stems 1–3, ascending to erect, often purple, simple, flexuous, proximally glabrescent or sparsely villous, distally ± densely villous. Leaves cauline, firm, margins slightly revolute, coarsely serrate or (distal) entire, scabrous to strigoso-ciliate, teeth mucronate, ± markedly veined, apices mucronate, abaxial faces scabrous, adaxial scabroso-strigose; proximal mostly withering by flowering, petioles winged, shorter than blades, bases clasping, blades elliptic to obovate 12–45+ × 7–20+ mm, smaller than mid, apices obtuse; mid narrowly winged-petiolate (petioles short with ± clasping bases), distally subpetiolate or sessile, blades ovate or elliptic to broadly oblanceolate or obovate, 32–85(–130) × 4–40 mm, gradually reduced distally, bases usually attenuate, sometimes cuneate, apices obtuse to acute; distal (arrays) oblanceolate to lanceolate, 5–28 × 1–8 mm, more sharply reduced. Heads 5–30+ in flat-topped, corymbiform arrays. Peduncles densely villous; bracts 0–1, scabroso-strigose. Involucres campanulate, 6–9 mm, shorter than pappi. Phyllaries 38–62 in 4–5 series, midnerves slightly raised (outer), oblong (outer) to lanceolate-linear or linear (inner), unequal, membranous, bases indurate, ± rounded, green zones to scarious margins in distal 1 / 3 – 1 / 2 (outer; seldom ± wholly foliaceous) to 1 / 5 or none (inner), margins often purple, hyaline, narrowly scarious, erose, densely villoso-ciliate, apices appressed, sometimes purplish-tinged, usually acute, sometimes obtuse, adaxial faces villous. Ray florets 10–15; corollas white to sometimes pale violet or purple, 8.5–11(–13) × 1.3–2.3 mm. Disc florets 30–70; corollas yellow becoming purple-or pinkish-tinged, 6–7(–8) mm, ± ampliate, tubes equaling to longer than funnelform-campanulate throats, lobes usually erect, sometimes ± spreading, lanceolate, 1–1.3 mm. Cypselae tawny, fusiform, 3–3.5 mm, slightly compressed, ribs 7–9 (brown, translucent), faces strigillose; pappi of tawny bristles 2.7–3 mm, ± equaling disc corollas. 2n = 18, 27.
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