Plants shrubs, spreading or rarely sprawling, not scapose, (1.5) 3–8 (10) dm tall, 3–12 (15) dm across, tomentose or rarely floccose to glabrate, grayish; stems decumbent to spreading, often without persistent leaf bases, up to 1⁄3 height or more of plant, the caudex stems absent or spreading in moving sand, the aerial flowering stems spreading, slender to stout, solid, not fistulose, 0.5–1 dm long, tomentose to floccose; leaves cauline, 1 per node, the petioles 0.2–1 cm long, tomentose to floccose, the blades broadly oblanceolate to elliptic or, rarely, orbiculate, (0.5) 1–3 cm long, 0.4–1.2 (1.5) cm wide, densely white-tomentose abaxially, less so and greenish adaxially, the margins plane; inflorescences cymose, open, 5–50 cm long, 5–80 cm wide, the branches dichotomous proximally, often with involucres racemosely arranged distally, tomentose to thinly floccose, rarely glabrate, the bracts 3, scalelike, linear to triangular, 0.5–6 mm long; peduncles absent or erect, 0.5–3 cm long, tomentose; involucres 1 per node, turbinate to turbinate-campanulate, 2–3 mm long, 1.5–2.7 mm wide, tomentose or nearly so, the teeth 5, erect, 0.1–0.4 mm long; flowers 1.5–3 mm long, the perianth white, glabrous, the hypanthium 1⁄4 length of perianth, essentially monomorphic, obovate, the stamens slightly to long-exserted, 2–5 mm long, the filaments subglabrous or sparsely puberulent proximally; achenes light brown, 2–3 mm long, glabrous. 2n = 80.

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