Perennial, acaulescent, herb with woolly root crown, spreading up to 400 mm in diameter. Leaves in rosette, radiating from crown, lying flat on the ground; blade narrowly obovate, margins almost entire to deeply lobed and also dentate or denticulate, lobes rounded to acute, base tapering petiole-like; upper surface smooth, green, lower surface white, woolly. Heads discoid, many crowded together in secondary inflorescences up to 60 mm in diameter, sessile. Involucral bracts 3-5-seriate, imbricate, apex acuminate, glabrous or with tufts of hairs. Receptacle paleate. Flowers: disc florets only, purple, fading to white; Sep. Fruit with cypsela cylindrical, obscurely ribbed, glabrous. Pappus of 5-10 long, narrow scales, truncate, margins overlapping.
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A herb. It has a taproot but no stem. It keeps growing from year to year. It grows 40 cm high. The leaves have a smell when crushed. The leaves spread out like a star in a ring. They do not have leaf stalks. The leaves can be 20 cm long. There can be teeth around the edge. The leaves are silvery grey underneath with felty hairs. The flower heads have many small disc florets. These flower heads to not have stalks and cover the head of the root. The flowers are purple.
It is a subtropical plant. It grows in hot arid places. It grows in places with a marked dry season. The dry season can be 6-11 months. It can grow in stony and silty soils that are seasonally waterlogged. In southern Africa it grows between 700-1,650 m above sea level. It can grow in arid places.
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