Annual or perennial herb, 0.2–1 m tall, much branched, erect or decumbent and rooting where touching the ground; stems maroon-tinged or reddish proximally; branches winged, sparsely puberulous and glabrescent, the wings incised-dentate.. Leaves aromatic (scent of camphor or mint), often bullate, elliptic or slightly oblanceolate, 1–8 cm long, 0.4–4 cm wide, base hardly narrowing and decurrent, margins dentate to incised-dentate, revolute when dry, apex acute, sparsely puberulous and glabrescent, glandulose.. Glomerules mauve or purple to pink, globose or ellipsoid, 7–12 mm long, 7–10 mm in diameter, rarely doubled; peduncles 1–4 cm long, winged; receptacle globose to ovoid; glomerule bracts hidden by the capitula, narrowly to broadly lanceolate to spatulate for the more distal ones, 3–4 mm long, acute-spinulose, puberulous; capitula on very short secondary receptacles, many, with 8–14 bracts, these linear to narrowly spatulate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, scarious and ciliate, spinulose, distally puberulous.. Florets: outer florets 8–14, tube filiform or slightly swollen near the base, 1.5–2.2 mm long, occasionally slightly glandular, lobes ± 0.1 mm long, style 2.2–2.7 mm long; inner florets 2–3, tube narrowly infundibuliform but narrowed distally, 2–2.3 mm long, sparsely glandular, lobes 0.3–0.4 mm long, glandular and pilose, anthers 1.1–1.4 mm long, style 2.8–3.7 mm long, entire.. Achenes of outer florets narrowly ellipsoid, 0.5–0.6 mm long, puberulous, of inner florets sterile and stipe-like.. Fig. 78/9–18.
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