Herbaceous biennial; stems corymbosely branched above with spreading-ascending branchlets, buff, stramineous, or reddish-purple, glabrous, 4-8 dm tall; leaves 2-8 cm long, firmly membranaceous, light grass- or olive-green, saliently and sharply dentate or serrate with acute to setulose-acuminate teeth or sometimes the uppermost entire, the main, middle, and lower stem leaves oblong or oblanceolate to lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, the upper strongly subamplexicaul; heads radiate, 2.5-3.5 cm broad; disk campanulate hemispherical; involucre moderately resinous, 5-6 seriate, the upper fourth to half of the bracts strongly revolute, terete and thickened; receptacle conspicuously foveolate; rays 18-25, the lamina about 9-11 mm long; achenes oblong, 4-5 mm long, 1-5 mm broad, stramineous or light brown, slightly striate on faces, horizontally truncate at apex; awns 2-3, about as long as the achene. Flowers July and August.