A glandular perennial herb with a stout woody stock, roots thinly fusiform, one or several erect flowering stems from the crown, seldom exceeding 25 cm tall, branching low down to carry the heads in very open corymbose panicles. Leaves mostly radical, often few, variable in shape but always with a long petiole, blade up to 7 x 4(-6) cm but often half that size, broadly elliptic to broadly ovate, apex rounded or very obtuse, base cuneate to cordate, margins irregularly toothed, the teeth sometimes denticulate, glandular-pilose, petiole up to 12 cm long (often twice the length of the blade), semiterete with long spreading glandular hairs, stem leaves few, oblong to lanceolate, base subhastate, sessile. Heads discoid, few to many, turbinate, c. 13 x 13 mm across the top of the flattened pappus. Involucral bracts c. 14, (8-)9-10(-12) mm long, glandular-pilose, calyculus bracts 2 or 3, short. Flowers purple or yellowish. Achenes hispid between the ribs.
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