Scandent shrub, sometimes elongate; stems slender, glabrate, with long inter-nodes. Leaves opposite, ovate, to 8 cm long, apically acute or acuminate, basally obtuse or rounded, the margins denticulate with minute, appendiform, distant teeth or entire, often drying yellowish-brown, 3-nerved from near the base, the midvein pinnately veined in the upper half, glabrate or pubescent with weak hairs, often barbellate in the vein axils beneath; petioles to 15 mm long, deeply canaliculate above. Inflorescences small panicles, the heads congested, sub-umbellate; peduncles minutely pubescent with short, erect or ascending, whitish hairs, with minute, foliaceous opposite bracts and the ultimate divisions with alternate scalelike bractlets. Heads small, 3-4 mm tall, 3-4 mm across, discoid; involucral bracts in several unequal series, broadly ovate and acuminate into a narrow, green, oblong and rounded apex, or ciliolate, dorsally puberulent; paleas indurate, dorsally puberulent, enfolding the ovary; florets exserted about halfway from the involucre, ca. 3 mm long, the corolla whitish, ca. 1.5 mm long, lobed about halfway down, the 5 lobes cuculate, dorsally puberulent, the anthers appendaged, the basal auricles fused, filaments glabrous, the style branches rounded, dorsally papillose, the style base contracted into the cylindrical nectary, the ovary compressed, ciliate, with ca. 3 weak or stout, unequal strigose awns. Achenes black, compressed, ciliate on the margins and apex with 1-3 short, unequal awns.
Damp or wet thickets or forest, often in pine-oak forest, frequently in second growth, at elevations from sea level to 3,000 metres, but most common at 1,500-2,400 metres.
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