Biennials or weak perennials, 40-100 cm; taprooted. Stems usually 1 (per rosette), erect, usually simple (proximal ² / 3 ), densely stipitate-glandular (gland tips and cross walls often dark). Leaves: proximal often persisting but withering, brown, twisted, and pendent by flowering; basal sessile, blades oblanceolate, 30-80 × 6-15 mm, densely woolly; cauline sessile, blades linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, reduced distally, bases clasping, margins entire, faces densely stipitate-glandular (gland tips and cross walls often dark). Heads (18-)30-80 (nodding in bud) in paniculiform arrays. Peduncles 2-12 cm, densely stipitate-glandular; bracteoles 0-6, linear to linear-lanceolate (clasping), stipitate-glandular. Involucres campanulate, 8-12 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, linear, unequal, 1 mm wide, apices often twisted and reflexed, long-attenuate, faces densely stipitate-glandular (gland tips and cross walls often dark). Ray florets 12-31; laminae 8-11 × 1.5-2.5 mm. Disc florets 45-65; corollas 5-6 mm, lobes 0.5 mm. Cypselae 2-2.5 mm, without ridges, shallowly ribbed to smooth, faces moderately long-strigose; pappi in 3 series, outer of linear scales 0.5-1 mm, inner of 30-35 moderately clavate bristles 5-6 mm. 2n = 10.

Flowering Oct-Dec (rarely spring). Sandy and grass-covered soils, disturbed sandy areas, such as pine plantations following clear-cutting and cultivation; 0-50 m; Fla.

Chrysopsis lanuginosa is found in Bay, Calhoun, Escambia, Gadsden, Liberty, Okaloosa, Walton, and Washington counties. The common name reflects the location of the original collection. The species was very rare until slash pine plantations were developed in the central panhandle in the latter half of the twentieth century. The range has expanded from Bay County to ten counties as a result of human activities; this is contrary to what has happened during the same period for other species of the genus in Florida. A hybrid swarm involving C. lanuginosa and C. linearifolia has been observed at a highly disturbed site in southern Bay County.