Shrub or tree to 12 m tall; twigs stout, strongly ridged, becoming terete or merely striate, tomentose with several-celled, weak, mostly collapsing, whitish or brownish hairs, sometimes glandular; axillary buds tomentose. Leaves alternate, lanceolate or elliptical, 15-20 cm long, acuminate at both ends, entire or serrulate, lateral veins 5-6 on each side of the midvein, undersides drying lighter, reticulate, above softly and sparingly pubescent with short, weak, often wide-based hairs, beneath tomentulose with longer hairs which lack broad bases; petiole 1.5-2.5 cm long, slender, pubescent. Inflorescence a many-headed, cymose panicle; peduncles slender, pubescent, striate, the ultimate divisions 10-15 mm long; minute bracteoles sometimes subtending the head and appearing as involucral bracts. Heads radiate, small, 5-7 mm tall; involucral bracts appressed, acute, in about 2 series, the innermost ca. 2 mm long, dorsally pubescent; paleas about twice as long as the involucral bracts, resembling them and enfolding the florets, persistent after the achenes fall; ray florets few, the corolla yellow, the limb broad, denticulate, ca. 5 mm long, glabrous or pubescent on the ribs beneath, the tube slender, pilose, ca. 2 mm long, the ovary linear-fusiform, glabrate; disc flowers 5-6 mm long, glabrous, the tube short, not well demarcated, the anthers dark with dark appendages, the auricles crumpled, the style branches obtuse, thickened, dorsally pilose, the style base not expanded, the nectary cylindrical, smaller in diameter than the style, the ovary fusiform, laterally flattened. Achene body black, linear-fusiform, compressed, 3.5 mm long, prominently winged; pappus of 2 subequal, slender awns ca. 2 mm long.
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