Plants 30–150 cm. Stems usually 1, erect, sparingly branched, loosely tomentose, sometimes glabrate. Leaves loosely tomentose, soon glabrate; basal petiolate, usually absent at anthesis, smaller than cauline, blades oblanceolate, tapered to base, margins entire or denticulate; cauline sessile, often clasping, usually not much smaller except among heads, blades ovate to lanceolate or oblong, margins entire or serrulate to denticulate; distally reduced to bracts, sometimes appendaged like phyllaries. Involucres broadly hemispheric, 20–35 mm. Phyllaries: bodies stramineous to greenish, ovate (outer) to oblong (inner), appendages erect to spreading, ± brown, fringed with 15–25 slender, ciliate, spinelike teeth 2–4 mm; mid with (9–)10–13(–15) pairs of lobes; faces tomentose or glabrescent. Corollas of neutral florets pink to purple (rarely white), 30–70 mm, enlarged, raylike; of bisexual yellowish, 20–30 mm. Cypselae dark brown, ca. 4 mm, glabrous; pappus bristles unequal, stiff, 5–6 mm.
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