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An erect slender perennial herb or subshrub, to c. 1.2 m. tall from a large woody rootstock; tuberous-rooted? Stems annual, purplish, usually solitary, stout becoming woody below, branched near the apex, densely leafy, striate, shortly pale-brownish tomentose or felted becoming whitish puberulous below, glandular; hairs short-stalked with an elongate oblique terminal cell.
Achenes pale-to dark-brown when mature, 2–3 mm. long, subcylindric, tapering slightly below, 10-ribbed (or 20-ribbed with the development of secondary ribs), strigose-hispid; pappus several seriate, copious, caducous, the setae flattened barbellate increasing from c. 2 mm. long on the outside to c. 9 mm. long inside.
Leaves subsessile, up to c. 12 x 3.5 cm., elliptic to lanceolate, apex acute, base cuneate, margins subentire or repand to coarsely serrate, lamina coriaceous, discolorous; upper surface glabrous and finely reticulate, lower surface appressed grey-brown tomentellous with a raised finely reticulate venation.
Synflorescence of many lax capitulum-clusters; the clusters 3–9-capitulate, terminal on stem and leafy branches; branches few to many, ascending, 1–30 cm. long, felted-tomentellous; capitula stalks 0 or to c. 10 mm. long.
Corollas pale-mauve to white, 13–16 mm. long, slender-tubular below, abruptly widening into a cylindric limb exserted beyond the pappus.
Involucres 9–11 x 5–9 mm., spreading to c. 15 mm. wide when mature, obconic-campanulate.
Florets c. 11 per capitulum.
