Plants (1-)3-8(-12+) dm. Leaves mostly cauline at flowering; blades broadly elliptic or ovate to lanceolate, 6-12(-18+) cm × 30-80(-120+) mm (including petioles), both faces sparsely pilose to hirsute. Bracts rounded-deltate to lance-deltate, (5-)10-15(-25+) × (4-)6-12+ mm. Inner phyllaries 8-10 mm, sparsely hispidulous to pilosulous, hairs 0.1-0.3 mm. Cypselae 2.5-4 mm; pappi 4-5 mm. 2n = 22.
Flowering Aug-Sep(-Oct). Open or shaded, damp to wet places in pine forests and mixed forests, often on sandy soils; 10-700 m; Ala., Ark., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Miss., Mo., N.J., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va.
Stems 3-10 dm, densely hirsute below, usually divaricately branched above and with numerous glomerules; lvs or most of them cauline, broadly elliptic to obovate, 9-25 נ3-10 cm, crenate, pilose beneath; glomerules 10-15 mm; bracts triangular-ovate, often longer than the glomerules; invol 8-10 mm, its bracts acuminate, resinous, thinly strigose; pappus- bristles gradually dilated into a narrowly triangular base; 2n=22. Dry woods; N.J. to O., Ill., and Kans., s. to Fla., Tex., and W.I. Aug., Sept.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
Frequent to infrequent or rare in dry and usually more or less sandy soil, mostly in black and white oak woods but also in beech woods, and along roadsides. It was once found in a hogyard where the hogs had destroyed all the vegetation except this species, which they had not molested.