Biennial l or perennial, 0.3 – 1.2  m tall, pale-green  herbs with  thick rootstock. Stem usually branched from the base, branches ascending to spreading, densely covered with rigid and glochidiate hairs, sometimes sparsely hairy. Leaves 5 – 20  x 0.5 – 6  cm,narrowly to broadly lanceolate or sometimes elliptic, lower ones large, entire, remotely toothed to sinuate-toothed, shortly petiolate, upper ones small, entire and sessile. Capitula few to many, 2 – 4 cm across, borne on  apices of main stem and shoots in dense to lax corymbs or panicles-like synflorescence,  peduncles on 0-6 cm long,  sparsely to densely stiff and glochidiate hairy. Involucre of many phyllaries, 6 – 8  x 3 – 5  mm, accrescent in fruit, up to 13 – 16  x 8 – 11  mm. Phyllaries with appressed, soft, stiff and glochidiate hairs outside, 4 – 12  mm long, inner ones much longer, marginate, sometimes hardened and thickened at the base after the dispersal of cypselas.. Ligules bright yellow, limb 2-3 times longer than tube. Cypselas reddish-brown to somewhat brick-red or brownish to dark brown, slightly sulcate, 3 – 3.5  mm long, fusiform, transversely undulate rugose. Pappus 5 – 6  mm long, white to off-white.

Two subspecies are recgonized in our flora area: