Plants 30-90 cm (cespitose or densely clonal; caudices superficial, woody, branched, and deep, rhizomes short to long, herbaceous or woody). Stems 1-4+, erect, stout (2-4 mm diam.), straight, simple, densely villosulous, ± glandular distally. Leaves 12-30, regularly distributed, proximal sometimes withering by flowering; sessile to short-petiolate (petioles 1-2 mm); blades obovate-elliptic or ovate-elliptic to elliptic-oblong, 25-110 × 10-40 mm, bases cuneate to rounded, margins revolute, ± undulate, entire or serrate distally, teeth coarse, ± obtuse, apices acute to obtuse, mucronate, faces densely villosulo-puberulent, stipitate-glandular, adaxial more so, array leaves reduced distally. Heads (3-)9-40(-67) in corymbiform arrays, branches strongly ascending, at acute angles with stems. Peduncles stout, 2-5 cm, ± densely villosulous, stipitate-glandular. Involucres 4.8-7.2 mm. Phyllaries lance-ovate (outer) to lance-linear (inner), ± pilose, gland-dotted; bracts 0-1(-2), linear, villosulous-puberulent. Ray florets (5-)7-11(-14); corollas white to pinkish, (10-)11.5-17(-19) × (0.8-)1-1.8(-2.2) mm. Disc florets (10-)15-30(-35); corollas slightly ampliate, 5-8 mm, sparsely glandular; tubes longer than narrowly campanulate throats, strigillose, lobes slightly spreading, lanceolate, 2-4 mm. Cypselae tan, fusiform, ± compressed, (1.5-)2-4.2 mm, ribs 6-8 (lighter than bodies), faces strigillose, gland-dotted; pappi of whitish bristles in 3 series, ± equal to disc corollas (innermost ± clavate). 2n = 18.

Flowering spring(-summer in damaged plants). Moist (at least seasonally) sandy places, bogs, wet pine flatwoods, cypress pond margins, roadside cuts, burns; 0-50 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., S.C.

Oclemena reticulata is a southern Atlantic coastal plain element and is a facultative wetland indicator. Although most often grouped with Doellingeria, its distinctness can be perceived in the morphometric study by J. C. Semple et al. (1991), who provided a full synonymy for the species.