Erect perennial shrub to 2 m tall; stems greenish to brown, terete, finely striate, densely hirtellous with brownish to reddish hairs. Leaves opposite; blades papyraceous, broadly ovate, to 9 cm long and 7 cm wide, the base broadly rounded or cordate, the margins bluntly serrate-crenate to doubly serrate-crenate, the apex acute to scarcely acuminate, the upper surface pilose, the lower surface densely pilose, tomentose on veins, without glandular punctations, the veins prominently trinervate from at or near base; petioles slender, to 2.5 cm long. Inflorescence a broad corymbose panicle with compact corymbose branches, the ultimate branches 2-4 mm long, hirtellous. Heads 5-6 mm high with 20-25 florets; involucral bracts ca. 20, subimbricate, unequal, in 3-4 series, bicostate, mostly short-acute to minutely mucronate with broad often prominent scarious margins, the outer surface pilose to puberulous, the inner bracts with more rounded more scarious minutely fimbriate tips; corolla lavender to purple, ca. 3 mm long, with few to many short hairs on outer surface of lobes; style branches slightly thickened distally. Achenes slightly constricted above, black with black ribs when mature, with many bristles almost exclusively on the ribs; pappus of 22-25 scabrous slender noncontiguous bristles.
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