Biennials (sometimes flowering in first year, sometimes persisting), 10-80+ cm. Stems erect, usually branched distally, sometimes from bases. Leaves usually basal and cauline; alternate; petiolate; blades deltate to ovate or oblong (in broad outline), usually 1-2-ternately lobed (lobes mostly oblong to obovate), ultimate margins entire or toothed, faces ± scabrellous to hirtellous, usually gland-dotted. Heads radiate, in loose, corymbiform arrays. Involucres ± hemispheric or broader, 10-18+ mm diam. Phyllaries persistent, 12-21+ in ± 2 series (reflexed in fruit, distinct, ± oblanceolate or lanceolate to lance-attenuate, subequal, thin-herbaceous, margins membranous, sometimes purplish, apices usually attenuate to ± caudate). Receptacles convex, pitted, epaleate. Ray florets 10-21+, pistillate, fertile; corollas yellow. Disc florets 30-80+, bisexual, fertile; corollas yellow, tubes longer than funnelform throats, lobes 5, ± lanceolate (usually longer than throats). Cypselae obpyramidal, 4-angled, usually glabrous, sometimes hirtellous; pappi 0. x = 12.

Resurrection of Amauriopsis, which was included in Bahia Lagasca by W. L. Ellison (1964), is predicated largely on the work of B. G. Baldwin et al. (2002).