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Erect, glabrous, perennial herb, up to 0.4 m high, with milky latex. Leaves sometimes crowded towards base, but peduncles remotely leafy upwards, entire to sinuate-dentate, sometimes with remote, spreading lobes, basal leaves narrowly oblanceolate; cauline leaves linear-elliptic to narrowly elliptic becoming lanceolate upwards, base semi-amplexicaul and sagittate. Capitula ligulate, few in lax, corymbiform cymes, or solitary, terminal; involucral bracts imbricate, glabrous at base. Florets 5-lobed, yellow. Flowering time Aug.-Nov. Pappus of few, white, barbellate bristles intermixed with down-like hairs. Cypselae pale brown, narrowly ellipsoid, slightly compressed, ribbed, glabrous.
Leaves numerous sessile patent-ascending, usually undivided and entire to sinuate-dentate, sometimes with remote spreading (not recurved) lorate lobes up to c. 3.5 x 0.5 cm.; basal leaves c. 10 x 1 cm., narrowly oblanceolate; cauline leaves up to c. 17 x 2 cm., linear-elliptic to narrowly-elliptic becoming lanceolate towards the stem apex, attenuate-acute, margins subentire to denticulate, semi-amplexicaul and sagittate at the base.
A herb. It is a small plant that keeps growing from year to year. It grows less than 55 cm high. The leaves are at the base and along the stem. They are narrow and taper to a long point. There are hooked teeth along the edge. The leaves are 7 cm long and 5 mm wide. The flower heads occur singly. They are yellow and white. There are 2 varieties.
Phyllaries imbricate, increasing in length towards the inside, becoming thickened below; outermost c. 4 mm. long, ovate to lanceolate, sub-coriaceous; innermost to c. 17 x 3 mm. long, increasing to c. 23 cm. long in fruiting capitula, narrowly lanceolate, membranous, eventually involute and reflexed.
Achenes pale-brown, 4–5.5 mm. long, narrowly ellipsoid, slightly laterally compressed, strongly 4-ribbed with c. 2 secondary ribs between, the larger ribs eventually thickened, glabrous; pappus white, c. 12 mm. long, composed of minutely barbellate setae and down-like hairs.
Corollas yellow, 15–18 mm. long, ± pubescent about the junction of tube and ligule; ligule 4–5 mm. long, oblong, reddish outside.
Capitula few in lax corymbiform cymes, or solitary and terminal on long synflorescence branches, glabrous at least when mature.
Stems usually simple, terete and finely striately-ribbed, leafy throughout but with leaves more crowded in the lower part.
Involucres up to c. 23 x 12 mm. in fruiting capitula, cylindric-campanulate later spreading.
An erect glabrous perennial herb up to c. 55 cm. tall, from a semi-woody taproot.
Florets numerous.
