Shrub or tree to 5 m. tall; branches slender, striate, gray or brown, twigs puberulent with appressed, ascending hairs, glabrescent. Leaves opposite, simple, ovate, apically acuminate, basally obtuse, to ca. 14 cm long, the margins serrate, the veins ascending-pinnate, above appearing 3-nerved from near the base, elevated and fine reticulate beneath, scabrous above with scattered, white-based verrucose hairs, softly pubescent beneath with sturdy hairs on the veins, glabrate on the lamina; petiole 6-9 mm long, slender, pubescent above, an intrapetiolar ridge present and prominent after leaf fall. Inflorescences with several heads, compound, subumbellate, cymose or round-topped panicles; pedicels puberulent, 2-3 cm long, linear bracts sometimes present. Heads radiate, ca. 3 mm across; involucre 8-10 mm tall, cylindrical to campanulate, the 4 outermost bracts basally imbricate, equalling or overtopping the disc florets, oblong, apically darker and deltoid, indurate, evenly puberulent and ciliate, the innermost bracts shorter, less pubescent; receptacle nearly flat; paleas scarious, enfolding the floret, apically acute-cuspidate, ciliate on the costa and margins, otherwise glabrous, about as long as the awns, much shorter than the corolla; ray florets few, the ligule showy yellow, ca. 20 mm long, spathulate, 1-notched, the style branches flattened, glabrous, the ovary fertile, sharply trigonous, 3-awned; disc florets numerous, ca. 8 mm long, the corolla tubular, ca. 6 mm long, the tube ca. 2 mm long, the throat cylindrical, glabrous, the 5 lobes ventrally pubescent, the anthers ca. 3 mm long, dark, the appendages lighter, the auricles obscured by a truncate apical expansion of the filaments, the style branches lanceolate, dorsally pilose, the base not expanded, immersed in the 1 mm tall, apically erose, cylindrical nectary, the ovary fertile, flat, glabrous, thin-winged, the pappus of two stout awns and united by a squamellous ring. Achene black, shiny ca. 5 mm long, strongly 2-3-angled, flat, the margins yellow; pappus of awns inserted near the edges of the achene apex, mostly shorter than the achenes, stout, ascending-strigulose, the dorsal angles continued by thin, scarious tissue to the sides of the achene, the awns united by a short or long, fimbriate ring of scales.
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