Slender, erect, usually annual, 0.2 – 1.2 (-1.5) m tall, simple or much branched herb with finely ribbed branches, beset with wavy, eglandular hairs more so towards base, sometimes mixed with glandular hairs, glabrescent. Leaves alternate thin, pale-green to dark green, hairy to glabrous, basal and lower cauline leaves on petiolate, oblong-obvate, up to 20 x 10 cm, lyrate-pinnatifid, with large, ovate or triangular-ovate, sinuate-dentate terminal lobe, lateral lobes smaller, gradually decreasing to the base; upper cauline leaves similar to lower, 3 – 10 x 1.5 – 6 cm, serrate, paperaceous; uppermost leaves often lanceolate, denticulate, sessile. Capitula 8-15-flowered, on glabrous or rarely glandulose peduncles, 1 – 1.5 cm long, 1.5 – 2 (-3) cm across, many in an open, ± corymb-like panicle. Involucre greenish to dark green, 5 – 10 x (2-) 3 – 5 mm. Phyllaries 2-seriate, almost glabrous; outer triangular-ovate, 0.5 – 1.2 mm, ± obtuse ; inner ones linear-oblong, 5 – 7 (-10) mm long, dorsally carinate, apically obtusish. Receptacle flat, naked. Florets with 3 – 4 mm long tube and 7 – 10 (-12) mm long, yellow ligules. Cypselas linear-oblanceolate, 3 – 4 (-5) mm long, finely 20-ribbed, glabrous, brownish-yellow.
This taxon is aggressively weedy, highly polymorphic as to the branching of stem, types of hairs on different plant parts, leaf incision and size of peduncles, involucre and ligules. Following two subspecies are reported for our Flora.