Semi-succulent shrub 0.5–3 m tall, sometimes scandent or scrambling, arising from a tuberous base; stems at first with white floccose tomentum, glabrescent, becoming green and glossy; plant sometimes flowering when leafless.. Leaves sessile, fleshy, narrowly obovate to elliptic or lanceolate, 5–17 cm long, 1–4 cm wide, the uppermost leaves as small as 2 cm long and 0.3 cm wide, base cuneate or attenuate, margins entire, obtuse to acute or acuminate, at first with ± white floccose tomentum especially on midrib beneath, glabrescent.. Capitula few in terminal pedunculate corymbiform cymes on long or less often on short shoots, erect in flower, pendent in fruit; stalks of individual capitula floccose-tomentose with white hairs; involucre 14–17 mm long, 10–18 mm in diameter; phyllaries 4-seriate, green, especially the midrib purplish at the apex, broadly ovate to lanceolate, the inner oblong, 5–15 mm long, obtuse to rounded, the inner sometimes truncate, white-floccose especially on margins, ± glabrescent.. Corolla blue-green or pale turquoise, fading to dull pinkish purple, scentless, 17–24 mm long, lobes 4.5–8 mm long, glabrous.. Achenes cylindric or narrowly obconic, 5.5–6 mm long, obtusely 10-ribbed, densely ascending-sericeous; outer pappus indistinct, of narrow unequal scales, 1.5–3.5 mm long, inner pappus of tawny flattened bristles, 8–12 mm long.
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