This is a stem less woody perennial. Leaves are spreading, oblong-lanceolate, pinnate or pinnatifid and denticulate, cottony above and thickly white tomentose beneath; lobes or segments contigous, broad sometimes crisped with acute or mucronate teeth and long or short petioled. Heads are 3 to 30 and about 1.7 to 2.5 cm across and borne sessile or shortly peduncled. Involucral bracts are 2.3 to 8.0 cm, scrabid or smooth, erect and scarious; outer one ovate-lanceolate and inner elliptic lanceolate and long acuminate. Receptacular bristles are very rigid, much shorter that the achnes and united into lacinate cups. Corolla is 2.5 to 3.2 cm long. The achnes are cuneate-obovate, unequally 4 to 5 angled, tuberculed, 0.6 to 0.8 cm across, curved, compressed and ashy-grey.

Stomachic.

Plants for a Future

A decoction of the root is cordial. It is given in the treatment of colic and puerperal fever. The bruised root is applied as a poultice to eruptions.