Erect, (20–) 30 – 60 (-70) cm tall, crisped hairy, biennial or annual herb, simple or branched from near the base. Leaves long-petiolate to subsessile, petioles up to ca 10 cm long, simple, oblanceolate, undivided and dentate or lyrate pinnatifid to pinnatisect, 10 – 25 (-29) cm long including petiole, 5 – 8 (-10) cm wide, lobes linear-lanceolate, inconspicuously denticulate on margins, dentations acute. Capitula solitary, terminal, 1.2 – 1.5 cm across, on up to 15 –20 cm long, leafless slender peduncles. Involucre ovate to broadly ovate, up to 20 mm long, 10 – 20 mm wide, finely arachnoid hairy. Phyllaries green, with purple tinged margins, rounded at the apices, finely arachnoid hairy; outer narrowly scarious margined, oblong, ca 4.5 mm long, 2 – 2.5 mm wide, median ± oval, 8 – 10 mm long, 6 – 8 mm wide, obtuse, inner ones with large ovate-oblong, membranous appendages. Florets pinkish-purple, ( also white or yellow in cultivated forms), marginal large, 2 – 2.5 cm long, conspicuosly widened and radiant and with many short triangular-ovate, sharply acute lobes, 5 – 10 mm longer than the central florets, fragrant. Cypselas homomorphic, dark brown, 3.5 – 4 mm long, antrorsely soft hairy to glabrescent. Pappus as long as cypselas or slightly shorter.