Erect perennial, 0.6–0.9 m high; roots thick and fleshy; stems fat and soft proximally, with erect branches, branches densely tomentose but glabrescent except in the younger parts, glandular, winged, the wings entire or sparsely denticulate.. Leaves occasionally tinged purplish, narrowly elliptic to linear, 2–12 cm long, 0.2–0.8 cm wide, base decurrent into the wings, margins denticulate, sometimes sparsely so, with ± callose teeth, apex acute, tomentose but glabrescent in older leaves, densely glandular.. Glomerules mauve (rarely white), globose, 10–15 mm in diameter; peduncle 0.5–4 cm long, wingless or proximally with a narrow wing, densely tomentose; receptacle orbicular or broadly obovoid; glomerule bracts hidden except for their apices, the lowermost deflexed against the peduncle, linear, to 5 mm long, acute to apiculate, scarious proximally, foliaceous and pubescent distally; capitula sessile, with 8–11(–15) bracts, these linear to narrowly lanceolate, 3–4 mm long, margins ciliate, apex acuminate or apiculate, distally pubescent.. Florets: outer florets 4–8, tube filiform, 2–2.3 mm long, slightly swollen proximally, lobes < 0.1 mm long,style 2.3–2.5 mm long; inner florets 2–3, tube narrowly infundibuliform, 2–2.4 mm long, sparsely glandular, lobes 0.3–0.5 mm long, sparsely glandular and sometimes pilose, anthers 1.3–1.5 mm long, style 3–3.3 mm long, entire.. Achenes of outer florets cylindrical, 0.7–0.9 mm long, puberulous; of inner florets narrowly obconical and sterile, glabrous.. Fig. 80.
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