Erect or partially decumbent herbs 30-150l(-200) cm long; stems loosely branched, purplish on exposed areas, sericeous, the trichomes to ca 1.4 mm long. Leaves distributed along the stem, ? elliptic, basally obtuse, apically acute and sharply mucronate, serrulate, 2.5-11 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, chartaceous, sericeous above, beneath conspicuously white-tomentose, secondary veins 6-10 pairs, promi-nent beneath, sunken above; petioles 5-15 mm long, expanded-deltoid and basally clasping. Inflorescences capitate clusters; peduncles 1-10 cm long; clusters ca. 1.5 cm tall, 2.5-4 cm across, containing 20-25 subsessile glomerules, several of the lower glomerules arising from and tightly enclosed by a leaflike bract; bract ovate, to 2 cm long, membranous, with a sharp mucro ca. 1.5 mm long; the glomerules compact, 3-11-headed, 5-8 mm high, 5 mm across, with a strigulose bract sub-tending each head; bract ovate, keeled, with a sharp, horizontally directed mucro ca. 1.5 mm long. Heads with 1 floret; involucral bracts membranous, about 6, + imbricate, linear, 4-4.5 mm long, conspicuously lanate at the base; corolla blue-violet, the tube slender, 1.4 mm long, the limb 1.6 mm long, 4-parted, the lobes equal, 1.0 mm long; anthers 0.9 mm long, basally sagittate, the appendage ca. 0.3 mm long; style branches 0.3 mm long, glabrate. Achenes turbinate, semiterete, smooth, 2 mm long, 0.7 mm across at the widest point, smooth, obscurely 5-nerved, vitreous-gray, resin-dotted in a ring around the top; pappus in 2 series, the outer series of 10 or more hyaline, minutely strigulose scales of different lengths, 0.5-1.0 mm long, the inner series considerably shorter, the scales linear-lanceolate, readily deciduous.
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