Biennials (sweetly fragrant), 50–120(–150) cm; taprooted. Stems (erect) gray-tomentose, glabrescent, stipitate-glandular beneath tomentum. Leaf blades linear to lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly spatulate, (1–)3–7 cm × 3–5(–7) mm, bases not clasping, decurrent 2–10 mm, margins revolute and closely undulate, faces concolor, greenish, loosely tomentose, stipitate-glandular. Heads usually in paniculiform (broadly columnar or at least as long as broad, sometimes pyramidal) arrays. Involucres turbinate to short-cylindric, 5–6 mm. Phyllaries in 4–5 series, usually pinkish, sometimes white or greenish (hyaline, dull), ovate to ovate-oblong, loosely tomentose (bases). Pistillate florets 38–62. Bisexual florets 2–7. Cypselae ridged, smooth. 2n = 28.