Erect, aromatic herb to 1 m tall; twigs puberulent or cinereous with fine, weak, ascending or spreading hairs, drying faintly many-angled, sometimes reddish. Leaves ovate, elliptic or lanceolate, mostly 5-8 cm long, 1.5-3 cm wide, apically acute, mucronulate, basally obtuse, acute or acuminate, often oblique, the margins serrate to subentire, 4-6 veins on each side of the prominent midvein, evenly pubescent above and beneath with short, erect, weak hairs and glandular punctae; petioles mostly 3-5 mm long but sometimes wanting. Inflorescence an open panicle of slightly congested, several-headed paniculate clusters, without well differentiated bracts and sometimes with linear, 4-8 mm long bracteoles. Heads globose-campanulate, disciform; involucral bracts numerous in several unequal series, indurated, dorsally pubescent, the inner series lanceolate, acute; ray florets purplish, numerous, ca. 5 mm long, the corolla capillary, apically 2-3-dentate, the lobes dorsally papillose, the style slender, papillose, branches basally globose, the ovary cylindrical, pubescent with ascending hairs, copiously glandular; disc florets several, purplish, ca. 5 mm long, the corolla tubular, expanding upwards, glabrous, the lobes dorsally glandular, the anthers ca. 2 mm long, the appendages acute, the basal tails slender, coherent, the style branches slender, pilose, free only at the tips, the style base little expanded, the ovary rudimentary, sterile. Achenes reddish brown, the body ca. 1 mm long, with glandular, prominently stramineous ribs, pubescent; pappus of numerous, basally united setose bristles in one series.
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Annual, ± fibrous-rooted, to 10(–15) dm, glandular-puberulent to occasionally subglabrate; lvs ample, lanceolate to elliptic or ovate, 4–15 × 1–7 cm, acute or acuminate, ± serrate, short-petiolate, or sometimes, especially the upper, merely tapering to the base; heads pink-purple, numerous in a generally ± flat-topped or layered infl; invol evidently pubescent with short, multicellular, glandular-viscid hairs, the bracts imbricate in several series, commonly ± pink or purple, at least distally; 2n=20. Salt or brackish (seldom freshwater) marshes, chiefly along the coast; Mass. to Fla., Tex., and trop. Amer., and occasionally inland, as in s. Ill. and se. Mich. Aug., Sept. Most of our plants are var. succulenta (Fernald) Cronquist, seldom over 6 dm, with large heads, the invol 5.5–7 mm high, the disk 5–9 mm wide. In Md. and Va. this passes into the more southern var. odorata, taller, with smaller heads, the invol 4–5.5 mm high and the disk 4–7 mm wide. (P. purpurascens)
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