Plants herbs, erect, 1.5–3 dm tall, 1–4 dm across, tomentose, brownish; stems slightly spreading to erect, without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/5 height of plant, the caudex stems absent, the aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 0.5–1.5 dm long, tomentose; leaves basal, 1 per node, the petioles 1–5 cm long, tomentose, the blades elliptic to ovate or obovate, 1.5–4 cm long, 1–2.5 cm wide, white-tomentose abaxially, less so and often greenish adaxially, the margins plane; inflorescences cymose with involucres racemosely disposed at tips, (10) 12–20 cm long, 1–5 cm wide, the branches dichotomous, tomentose, the bracts 3, scalelike, narrowly triangular, 1–4 mm long, or foliaceous, elliptic to oval, 5–15 mm long, 5–15 mm wide; peduncles absent; involucres 1 per node, turbinate, 3–5 mm long, 2–4 mm wide, tomentose, the teeth 5, erect, 0.4–0.8 mm long; flowers 3.5–5 mm long, the perianth white to whitish-brown, glabrous, the hypanthium 1⁄4 length of perianth, the tepals monomorphic, oblanceolate, the stamens exserted, 3–7 mm long, the filaments pilose proximally; achenes light brown, 2.5–3 mm long, glabrous.