Annual or perennial herb or woody herb, 0.6–1.5 m high, much branched, the whole plant aromatic; branches sometimes flushed reddish or purple, winged, densely to sparsely tomentellous to hispidulous and densely glandular, glabrescent on older parts, the wings very narrow to 5 mm wide and entire to denticulate.. Leaves lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 1–8 cm long, 0.3–2.8 cm wide, base decurrent, margins dentate or denticulate with callose teeth, undulate, apex obtuse, acute or apiculate, hispidulous, tomentellous, puberulous or glabrescent on both surfaces and densely glandular.. Glomerules purple, pink or mauve, narrowly cylindrical to globose, 0.8–6.5 cm long, 0.4–0.7 cm in diameter; peduncle 0.5–5 cm long, winged or unwinged, hispidulous or tomentellous; glomerule bracts hidden by the capitula or sometimes the proximal ones visible at the base, lanceolate, 2–3 mm long, acute to apiculate, puberulous; receptacle linear; capitula sessile, with bracts 8–14, filiformto oblanceolate, 1.5–2.5 mm long, rounded to apiculate, scarious, puberulous and ciliate distally.. Florets: outer florets (7–)8–10, tube filiform or narrowly ovoid proximally, becoming corky proximally, 0.9–1.3 mm long, glabrous, minutely toothed at the apex, style 1.2–1.6 mm long, bifid; inner florets 1–3, tube widening, 1.2–1.5 mm long, glandular, corky, lobes 0.2–0.4 mm, puberulous and glandular, anthers 0.8–1.4 mm long, style white with a purple tip 1.5–3.1 mm long, papillose, entire or minutely bifid.. Achenes of outer florets cylindrical to ellipsoid, 0.4–0.6 mm long, glabrous or puberulous, of inner florets mostly < 0.3 mm long, glabrous and vestigial but occasionally ellipsoid and 0.5 mm long.. Fig. 79.
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