Plants 14-65 cm. Stems erect, puberulent. Leaves: basal persistent at flowering, winged-petiolate, blades oblanceolate to obovate or spatulate, 20-150 mm, serrate near apices, puberulent; cauline sessile, blades narrowly to broadly ovate, 10-110 × 4-30 mm, bases cuneate, margins serrate, distal becoming entire, apices acuminate to acute, faces puberulent. Heads 2-5 per branch, in corymbiform arrays. Involucres 4-7 mm at flowering. Peduncle bracts absent. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, outer 2-4 mm, mid 3-5 mm, glabrate. Ray florets 3-7; corolla tubes 2-4 mm, laminae 2-6 mm. Disc florets 9-20; corolla tubes 3-4 mm, lobes 0.6-2 mm. Ovaries fusiform-obconic, 0.8-2 mm, densely strigose; pappi: inner series 4-5 mm. 2n = 18. Flowering mid summer-early fall. Dry sandy, clay, and shaley open soils in fields and open mixed and pine woods, road margins, eastern deciduous forest; 0-1600 m; Ala., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Miss., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va. Collections of Sericocarpus asteroides purportedly from Indiana and Wisconsin are of questionable provenance or chance introductions.