Plants 22-75 cm. Stems erect (stout, branched), glabrate. Leaves: basal and proximalmost cauline withering by flowering; cauline sessile; blades linear, 10-80 × 1-10 mm, margins entire, apices acuminate, faces glabrate. Heads 2-4 per branch, in broadly corymbiform arrays. Peduncle bracts broadly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, glabrate. Involucres 4-6 mm. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, outer 2-4 mm, mid 3-4 mm, glabrate. Ray florets 2-6; tubes 2-4 mm, laminae 4-11 mm. Disc florets 5-15; corollas 2-4 mm, lobes 1-2 mm. Ovaries obconic, 0.8-1.3 mm, densely strigose; pappi: inner series 3-6 mm. 2n = 18. Flowering mid summer-early fall. Dry to moist sandy, clay, and gravelly soils of open deciduous and pine woods , oak and pine barrens, roadsides, fields; 0-900 m; Ala., Conn., Del., D.C., Ga., Ind., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Miss., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.
