Flexuous perennial herbs or vines to 3 m tall; stems greenish to slightly reddish, terete, finely striate, weakly pilose to glabrescent. Leaves opposite; blades papyraceous, broadly ovate, to 6 cm long and 5 cm wide, the base broadly cordate, the margins closely and bluntly serrate-crenate, the apex abruptly short-acuminate, the surfaces sparsely pilose, puberulous on veins, without glandular punctations, the veins prominently trinervate from the base; petioles slender, to 2.5 cm long. Inflorescence a broad corymbose panicle with compact corymbose branches, the ultimate branches 2-4 mm long, densely puberulous. Heads ca. 5 mm high with 20-25 florets; involucral bracts ca. 20, subimbricate, unequal, in ca. 3 series, mostly bicostate, mostly short-acute with rather broad scarious margins, the outer surface pilose to sparsely puberulous, the inner bracts with more rounded more scarious usually minutely apiculate tips; corolla lavender, 3.0-3.5 mm long, with many short hairs on outer surface of lobes; style branches slightly thickened distally. Achenes slightly constricted above, black when mature with black ribs, sparsely scabrid or with short bristles on the ribs; pappus of 27-30 scabrous contiguous bristles.
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