Annual or short-lived perennial herb, sometimes weakly suffrutescent, 20-100 cm tall; stems appressed-pubescent, branches spreading.. Leaves mostly alternate, obovate to elliptic, 1.5-9 cm long, 0.3-3.5 cm wide, base cuneate, the distal leaves more rounded and more or less subsessile, margins obscurely denticulate, apex obtuse to subacute, shortly apiculate, green and shortly pubescent above, greyish white tomentose beneath.. Capitula in lax divaricately branching terminal and upper axillary corymbiform cymes; involucre more or less hemispherical, (2.7-)4-7 mm in diameter at flowering time; phyllaries 3-4-seriate, broadly ovate or elliptic, weakly and shortly pungent-apiculate, (4.5-)6-10 mm long, pallid and glabrous in the lower part, darker green centrally and glabrous or sometimes shortly finely pubescent and often glandular in the upper part, often purplish in upper half towards the apex and at the margins, all with distinctly laciniate-pectinate pallid hyaline margins.. Corolla deep purple, purplish blue or violet, less often pale lilac, (4-)5.2-10 mm long, lobes 2-4 mm long, shortly stiffly hairy at the apex.. Achenes broadly ellipsoid, 1.3 mm long, 5-ribbed, more or less rugulose between the ribs, almost glabrous, glandular; pappus of few bristles 1.5-3 mm long.
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