A small biennial, 20 – 80 cm tall herb, with simple or branched stems, glabrescent. Leaves sessile, linear-lanceolate, 8 – 20 x 0.5 – 2 cm, semiamplexicaul, acuminate. Capitula many flowered, on hollow peduncles, fruiting peduncles strongly thickened at the apices, 6 – 10 mm broad below capitula. Receptacle areolate. Involucre conic-cylindrical, 4 – 5.5 cm long at anthesis. Phyllaries 8-12, longer than the florets, linear-oblong to linear-lanceolate, 2.5 – 3 x 0.3 – 0.4 cm at flowering, 5 – 6 (-7) x 0.5 – 0.7 cm in fruiting, acuminate. Ligules yellow, much shorter than phyllaries. Cypselas 1 – 1.2 (-1.5) cm long, yellowish or brownish, fusiform, straight or slightly curved, sulcate, 10-ribbed, muricate along ribs; beak 1 – 1.4 cm long, slightly inflated above, easily detached from the inflated part. Pappus 1.2 – 2.5 cm long with hairy annulus at the base, yellowish.