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Leaves subsessile, mostly 3–10(13) x 0.5–3 cm., oblanceolate, obtuse to rounded at the apex and narrowly cuneate below, margins serrulate with minute callose teeth, upper surface thinly araneose-lanate soon roughly puberulous, lower surface greyish araneose-lanate, both surfaces densely gland-dotted.
Phyllaries numerous; the outer straight or ± squarrose, from c. 5 mm. long, pungent-subulate, aristate, araneose-lanate; the inner straight, up to c. 23 mm. long, linear-lanceolate, tapering to a sharply acute sometimes aristate apex, tomentellous-puberulous, margins sharply minutely toothed.
Achenes 5–6 mm. long, subcylindric, 10-ribbed with numerous long stiff white hairs ± appressed in the grooves, those near the achene base shorter, more robust and spreading; pappus several-seriate of numerous spreading, narrowly lanceolate, chartaceous scales 0.5–3 mm. long.
Disk-florets deep-red, tubular in the lower 2–3 mm. and abruptly dilated into a deeply lobed cylindric to conic limb 5–7 mm. long; lobes to c. 6 mm. long, linear, recurved at apex, glandular outside; anther-tube red-purple, the conical dp exserted.
Stems annual, single or 2–4, 25–85 cm. tall, becoming woody below, branching above or sometimes throughout its length, leafy, angular-striate, thinly-lanate becoming puberulous; branches ascending.
Capitula many, solitary and terminal on leafy short ascending branches, capitula subtended and usually exceeded by 1-several small leaf-like bracts.
Involucre mostly 16–22(25) x 18–30 mm., spreading to c. 40 mm. wide, broadly campanulate to obconic.
An erect suffrutex, or one or more stems decumbent, from a woody rootstock.
Receptacle deeply alveolate with pits to c. 2 mm. deep, paleae absent.