Erect, ephemeral herb, sparingly branched; stems drying angled, silvery white with more or less appressed arachnoid hairs, to 50 cm tall. Leaves spatulate to oblanceolate, decurrent on the stem for a short distance but not auricled, mostly entire, apically mucronulate, strongly discolorous, the lower leaves dark above, to 5 cm long and 8 mm broad, sparingly arachnoid pubescent on emerging, soon glabrous, shiny, dark when old, beneath white-tomentose, the midvein prominent, the margins slightly revolute. Inflorescence an often-interrupted spicate raceme to 8 cm long and 15 mm thick, tapering upwards from below the middle, the heads in clusters of 1-6, the lowermost clusters subtended by leaflike, linear bracts which diminish upwards in the spike; pedicels lanate. Heads disciform cyathiform to fusiform, 3-5 mm high; involucral bracts imbricate in several series, the innermost equal, green-keeled with broad hyaline margins and the apical portion conspicuously dark brown, the outer series much shorter, broader, and lacking a conspicuous keel or brown tips; receptacle flat or slightly concave, naked, muricate; ray florets capillary, narrowed upwards, the corolla 1-2-notched and darkened, 3 mm long, numerous, the ovary fertile; disc florets few, 3 mm long, the corolla tubular, apically unequally 4-notched and darker, the tube white, the anthers 4, with fimbriate basal tails, the appendages obtuse, the style branches truncate, apically glandular fringed. Achenes 1 mm long, fusiform, weakly 1-4-angled with sparse glandular trichomes or tubercules, weakly longitudinally muricate-striate, yellowish to amber colored, sometimes slightly compressed; pappus of many slender, 2-2.5 mm long, basally strigose bristles which may be acicular or expanded at the tips, basally connate and falling as a unit before the fruit is shed.
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Annual or biennial, 10-30 cm tall, usually branched only at base; stems 1-several, erect or ascending. Basal lvs usually present at flowering, sometimes dead but persistent, apetiolate, elliptic-oblong to spathulate, 25-70 mm long. Lower cauline lvs apetiolate, densely white-tomentose on lower surface, usually glabrous but sometimes with a few hairs on upper, discolorous, plane, narrow-spathulate to almost linear, obtuse to acute, shortly mucronate, usually flat, sometimes undulate, 20-35 × 2-8 mm; uppermost cauline lvs smaller, often folded, undulate and linear. Capitula in dense terminal and axillary clusters; clusters forming a dense terminal spike and sometimes scattered below. Involucral bracts oblong, apiculate, 3.5-4.2 mm long; stereome green or reddish purple; lamina pale brown, usually with darker markings toward base; gap and margins clear; outer bracts glabrous. Achenes minutely papillate, c. 0.6 mm long.
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