Plants 10-40 cm. Stems glabrous or sparsely villosulous. Leaf blades oblanceolate to narrowly obovate or oblong-oblanceolate, (25-)35-100 × (3-)5-15 mm wide, at least distal cauline bases subauriculate and subclasping, distalmost not reduced. Heads immediately subtended by leaflike bracts similar to distal cauline leaves. Involucres 12-25 mm. Phyllary apices long-acuminate to long-acute, not apiculate or cuspidate. Ray florets 15-25(-32) or 0. Disc florets 53-150. Cypselae 5-7 mm, faces glabrous.

Putative hybrids between vars. foliosa and monocephala are highly fertile and show a gradual transition from discoid to radiate morphology, including 'elongation of the corolla, changes in the corolla morphology from actinomorphic to bilabiate to radiate, and a reduction to subsequent loss of the androecium in the outer florets...trends observed throughout the putative hybrid swarm' (J. F. Hughes and G. K. Brown 1994).