Annual. Stems erect, branching, ribbed to grooved, 40-100 cm tall; hairs pale, stiff and bristly, also sparse to dense and filamentous above. Rosette and lower stem lvs thin, petiolate, oblong to oblanceolate, rarely linear- oblanceolate, usually deeply pinnatifid, rarely simple and shallowly pinnatifid or toothed, 6-20-(40) × (0.8)-1.5-6-(10) cm; hairs pale, bristly, 0.5-1 mm long, sparse beneath; lobes slightly recurved, lobed again especially acroscopically. Upper stem lvs sessile, triangular to linear, toothed or divided up to 1/2way into slender lobes at least at auriculate base; hairs pale, bristly. Capitula turbinate to campanulate; buds erect. Involucral bracts with pale coarse bristly hairs and often sparse filamentous hairs on midrib of outer surface, and fine appressed straight hairs on inner surface especially distally; outer bracts 10-15, linear, c. 1/2 length of inner bracts; inner bracts lanceolate, not keeled, 7-10 mm long, with pale to scarious glabrous margins. Receptacle areoles with low finely ciliolate margins. Corolla yellow, sometimes with red stripe on outer face of ligule. Achenes brown, 10-ribbed, fusiform, scabrid, beaked or shortly beaked, 4-7 mm long. Pappus bristles in 1 row, fine, white.