Stems erect, 20-100 cm. Cauline leaf blades lanceolate to linear, reduced distally (becoming bractlike near heads), margins usually serrate apically, rarely entire. Peduncles usually glabrate, sometimes hispid, stipitate-glandular. Involucres turbinate, (2-)2.5-5 mm diam. Ray florets 5-11; corolla laminae 4-6 mm. Disc florets (9-)14-22(-26). 2n = 8.
Flowering (Jul-)Aug-Oct(-Nov). Sand, sandy loam, and sandy clay, oak and pine woods, usually in openings, roadsides, banks, fencerows; 0-500 m; Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., Okla., S.C., Tex., Va.
Annual weed 2-10 dm, generally much branched above, subglabrous to more often coarsely scabrous or spreading-hairy, sometimes also glandular; lvs oblanceolate or linear-oblanceolate, with a few spiny teeth or occasionally entire, 3-7 cm נ3-10 mm, or the lower sometimes larger; heads numerous in a diffuse infl, the disk less than 1 cm wide; invol 5-7 mm, its bracts well imbricate, 1 mm wide or less; rays 7-18, 4-6 mm; achenes sericeous-canescent; pappus persistent; 2n=8, 10, 12, 14. Waste places, especially in sandy soil; Va. to Fla., w. to Tex., and inland to Okla. and Kans. Aug.-Nov. (Isopappus d.)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.