Erect to reclining perennial herb or subshrub to 1.5 m tall; stems greenish to brown or reddish, terete, finely striate, densely puberulous. Leaves mostly opposite, some upper leaves often alternate; blades papyraceous, rhomboidal to narrowly ovate, to 5.5 cm long and 3.5 cm wide, the base truncate to broadly cuneate, the margins usually bluntly serrate-crenate, the apex short-acute to short-acuminate, the upper surface coarsely to finely pilose, the lower surface sparsely to rather densely short-pilose, puberulous on veins, with glandular punctations, the veins prominently trinervate from base; petioles slender, to 3 cm long. Inflorescence a broad corymbose panicle with very densely corymbose branches, the heads in glomerate clusters, the ultimate branches 1-3 mm long, puberulous. Heads 4-5 mm high with 20-25 florets; involucral bracts ca. 20, subimbricate, unequal, in ca. 3 series, bicostate, with broad scarious margins, usually with prominent scattered puberulence on outer surface, the outer bracts with short-acute tips, the inner bracts with broad usually rounded more scarious tips; corolla lavender to white, ca. 2.5 mm long, often with short hairs on the outer surface of the lobes; style branches slender. Achenes slightly constricted above, black with black ribs when mature, usually scabrid or with short bristles primarily or exclu-sively on the ribs; pappus of ca. 25 closely scabrous often basally thickened and usually contiguous bristles.
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