Perennial rhizomatous herb up to c. 45 cm tall, stock woody, c. 5-8 mm diam. producing one or two tufts of leaves in the first season, each giving rise to a terminal flowering stem in the following season, stem erect, simple or forking into inflorescence branches, thinly set with long white hairs, leafy in the lower part, with few, distant, reduced leaves upwards. Radical leaves up to 20 x 4 cm, lyrate-pinnatisect, upper expanded part shallowly and irregularly lobed, margins irregularly dentate, lowermost lobes often cut to the midrib, few, rounded, irregularly dentate, shortly decurrent onto a flat petiole-like part accounting for c. half the leaf length, expanded below, half clasping, both surfaces thinly pilose; lower cauline leaves similar but becoming smaller and sessile upwards, deeply pinnatifid, the lobes narrow, patent, base broadly auricled, margins irregularly and sharply cut, uppermost leaves much reduced, lanceolate-acuminate, sharply and deeply cut. Heads radiate, solitary or up to 4 on long sparsely bracteate peduncles corymbosely arranged. Involucre campanulate, bracts c. 14-20, 9-9.5 mm long, about equalling the disc, glabrous or sparsely hairy, calyculus bracts few, long, ciliate mainly on the margins, more densely hairy at the base of the involucre. Rays 11-12, long and spreading, they and the disc bright yellow. Achenes turbinate, 5 mm long, ribbed, white-hispidulous between the ribs.
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