Plants with a short simple caudex, the stems rather slender, 3-8 dm, ±spreading-hirsute to occasionally glabrous; lvs glabrous, or ±hairy like the stem, entire or slightly toothed, the basal and lower cauline soon deciduous, or the basal persistent, oblanceolate, and petiolate, those above persistent, sessile or occasionally narrowed to a petiole-like base, linear or nearly so, to 10 cm נ6 mm, the upper and rameal ones numerous and much reduced; heads many in an often dense infl, on short or elongate, often copiously subulate-bracteate peduncles, narrow, the glabrous invol cylindric in life, rather narrowly obconic when pressed, 4 mm, its green- tipped, evidently imbricate bracts (or some of them) with subulate, marginally inrolled tip; heads 18-32- fld, the rays 12-18, white, 2-5 mm, 4-10 more than the disk-fls; 2n=16, 32. Open woods, fields, and pastures; Io., Ill., Mo., and e. Kans.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.