Perennial herbs; roots numerous, coarse; sap milky; stems with scattered or dense, long, stout, tawny hairs. Leaves mostly basal, oblanceolate or obovate, to 10 cm long, subentire or undulate, mostly denticulate with minute glandular teeth, apically acute or obtuse, basally cuneate, sometimes broadly so and clasping, sometimes narrowed into a distinct petiolar region, midvein prominent, the pinnate venation often irregular, the cauline leaves often smaller, narrower, acute. Inflorescence scapose, several-headed, elongate (to 40 cm tall) sparingly branched, linear bracts sometimes subtending the branches, the upper portion tomentose with gland-tipped bristles and whitish, simple or sparingly dendritic hairs. Heads 8-10 mm long, ligulate; involucre drying dark, of numerous linear bracts in an inner, subequal series and several, similar, graded outer bracts, dorsally pilose with dark glandular hairs, the margins sometimes conspicuously lighter; receptacle naked; florets all ligulate, all perfect, all fertile, the corollas yellow, slightly exceeding the involucre, the ligule with short rounded teeth, the anthers with conspicuous appendages, basally sagittate, the style branches slender, puberulent. Achene nearly black, 3 mm long, cylindrical, prominently many-striate; pappus of numerous, strigose, tawny bristles.
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