Annual or biennial, sparingly to densely hairy, decumbent or erect, up to 50 (-80) cm tall herb. Leaves ovate-oblong, 1.5 – 5 cm long, 0.5 – 1.5 cm wide, 1-3-pinnatisect into ± hairy, linear-oblong or linear-lanceolate to elliptic, acute-mucronate ultimate segments. Peduncles slender, not or slightly to distinctly upwardly thickened in fruit. Capitula radiate, 1 – 4 cm across. Phyllaries oblong or oblong-obovate, outer acute, inner subacute to obtuse, hyaline to pale-brown scarious margined, hairy. Receptacle convex to elongated and conical especially in fruit, 2 – 10 x 2 – 3 mm, ± contracted, acute or attenuate to the tip. Phyllaries mostly lanceolate to oblanceolate, nearly as long as disc-florets, ± stiff acuminate apically, subpersistent. Ray-florets 12 – 15, fertile, corolla tube glabrous, ligules oblong-elliptic, 3.5 – 17 x 2.5 – 5 mm, white, deciduous. Disc-florets yellow, occasionally purplish-tinged, 2.5 – 3.5 mm long, basally not or very slightly inflated, glabrous. Cypselas obconical, 2 – 2.5 mm long, squarish in cross section, smooth, usually 10-ribbed, ribs thickened, obtuse, apex with a thickened undulating rim or a short lacerate hyaline auricle.