Biennials or short-lived perennials, (6-)10-40(-50) cm; fibrous-rooted, caudices simple or branched, or rhizomes. Stems erect, sparsely to moderately strigose or loosely strigoso-villous or glabrate, often minutely glandular near heads. Leaves basal (persistent) and cauline; basal blades oblanceolate to spatulate, 20-80 × 2-6 mm, cauline gradually reduced distally, margins usually entire, rarely dentate, glabrous or sparsely villoso-hirsute, distal sometimes also glandular. Heads 1-5(-8) in corymbiform arrays (on straight, spreading peduncles). Involucres 5-11 × 8-12 mm. Phyllaries in 2-3 series (inner apices attenuate to caudate), sparsely hirsute to villoso-hirsute, eglandular or sparsely minutely glandular only at tips. Ray (pistillate) florets in 2 series: outer 45-60, corollas white to pink, 5-7 mm, laminae (filiform) erect, not coiling or reflexing; inner far fewer than outer, elaminate. Disc corollas 4.2-6.2 mm. Cypselae 1.6-1.8 mm, 2-nerved, faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of setae, inner of 24-35 (accrescent) bristles. 2n = 36.

Flowering (Jun-)Jul-Aug. Floodplain meadows, pond edges, open boggy woods, tundra; 200-2000 m; Alta., B.C., Man., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Alaska, Wash.