Perennials, 30-100 cm, cespitose; with short, branched caudices. Stems 1-3+, decumbent to as­cending (curved or straight, some­times stout, green to reddish brown), glabrous. Leaves (dark green to bluish green) thin, apices acute to acuminate, mucronate, faces glabrate or glabrous; basal withering by flowering (vernal rosettes developed at flowering), petiolate or sessile (petioles winged, sheathing, ciliate), blades oblanceolate to obovate, 10-70 × 3-5 mm, bases cuneate to attenuate, margins entire or rarely sparsely serrate distally, apices obtuse to rounded, cuspidate; proximal cauline usually withering by flowering, petiolate or sessile (petioles narrowly winged, bases ± clasping), blades oblanceolate to linear-oblanceolate, 70-105 × 2-4 cm, bases attenuate to cuneate, or ± auriculate, ± clasping; distal sessile, blades linear-lanceolate to narrowly subulate, 5-65 × 1-4 mm, progressively reduced distally, bases subauriculate, ± clasping, margins entire, with marginal cilia proximally, faces glabrous; reduced array leaves often in fascicles along branches, markedly 3-nerved. Heads in leafy, paniculiform to racemiform arrays, branches nearly divaricate to ascending, straight, sometimes secund, secondarily ramified, leafy with array leaves ± stiff, asscending to appressed. Peduncles 0.4-2 cm, mostly borne on secondary branches, glabrous, bracts 3-6, linear to subulate, stiff, distalmost sometimes surpassing involucres, glabrous. Involucres cylindric, (4.5-)5.5-7.1(-8.5) mm. Phyllaries in 4-6 series, oblong-lanceolate to -oblanceolate to sometimes linear (innermost), unequal to subequal, bases indurate ¹ / 4 - ² / 3 , margins narrowly scarious, erose, hyaline, sometimes sparsely ciliolate, green zones diamond-shaped to lanceolate, apices acute to long-acuminate, involute, spreading, mucronate to apiculate, faces glabrous. Ray florets (13-)20-28(-34); corollas usually blue-violet, rarely white, laminae (7-)9-15(-19) × 0.6-2.1 mm. Disc florets (28-)33-51(-68); corollas yellow turning brown, 3.4-4.6(-5.5) mm, tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes lanceolate, 0.5-1 mm. Cypselae tan to brown, obovoid, ± compressed, 1.5-2.1 mm, 4-5-nerved (thin), faces sparsely strigillose; pappi white, 3-5 mm. 2n = 64.

Flowering Aug-Oct. Broken limestone pavements of cedar glades, limestone disturbed roadsides; 200-400 m; Ala., Ga., Ky., Tenn.

Symphyotrichum priceae blooms earlier than S. pilosum var. pilosum.