Coarse perennial 1-3 m, the stem glandular or spreading- hairy beneath the heads, otherwise generally glabrous; lvs large, sometimes over 3 dm, deltoid-ovate, subpalmately lobed and veined, scabrous-hispid to subglabrous above, more finely hairy and often glandular beneath, with broadly winged, sometimes runcinate petiole; heads in moderately open, leafy cymes, the bright yellow disk ca 1.5 cm wide; invol bracts lance-ovate to ovate or elliptic, leafy, 1-2 cm, much broader and generally longer than the outer receptacular bracts; rays ca 8-11, bright yellow, 1-2(-3) cm, rarely reduced and inconspicuous; achenes ca 6 mm, impressed-striate (or shallowly ribbed and grooved), with many nerves; 2n=32. Woods and meadows; N.Y. to Ill. and Mo., s. to Fla. and Tex. July-Sept.(Smallanthus u.)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
Restricted to the southern part of the state where it is found on wooded slopes in places exposed to the sun, usually toward the base of a slope but not always so. It is infrequent and grows in colonies. In 1931 in Harrison County, I found it as a common weed in an orchard of Wm. W. Jacobs about a mile west of Glidas. The orchard was on the south side of a woods where the species was common and from which it had escaped into the orchard. The owner was making strenuous efforts to eradicate it.