Perennials or subshrubs, mostly 80-250 cm. Stems erect or sprawling to subscandent, hispidulous to coarsely short-pilose. Petioles 5-20 mm. Leaf blades (3-nerved) narrowly lanceolate to deltate-lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-10 × 1-4 cm, margins coarsely dentate to subentire. Heads usually 5-50+ in (terminal or lateral) corymbiform arrays. Involucres cylindric, (7-)8-10 mm. Phyllaries in 4-6(-8) series, apices of the inner appressed, rounded to truncate (sometimes slightly white-petaloid or expanded). Corollas purplish to light blue to nearly white or slightly pinkish. 2n = 40, 60, 70.

Flowering mostly Oct-Dec, sometimes year round. Hammocks, thickets, pinelands, cypress-slash pine flats, canal banks, disturbed sites; 0-30 m; Fla., Tex.; Mexico; West Indies.