Herbs, 3-20 × 1.5-8 dm, tomentose or nearly glabrous.  Aerial flowering stems erect, 2-17 dm, occasionally finely striated or grooved. Leaves: petiole 5-20 cm; blade lanceolate or oblanceolate to oblong, 0.5-20 × 0.3-2.5(-3) cm, tomentose abaxially, less so to floccose or glabrous adaxially.    Inflorescences 5-50(-80) × 5-50 cm; bracts 3, scalelike, usually triangular, 1-5 mm. Peduncles 0.3-3 cm, thinly tomentose or nearly glabrous. Involucres turbinate to campanulate, 3-7 × 1.5-6 mm; teeth 0.2-0.8 mm. Flowers 5-15 mm, including (0.5-)1-4(-7) mm stipelike base; perianth yellow, densely white- to silvery-tomentose abaxially; tepals monomorphic, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic; stamens 1.7-2.5 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes brown, 4-6 mm, densely tomentose.

Coarse, taprooted perennial mostly 1-2 m; stem woolly-villous, freely branched above; lvs ±numerous, alternate, white-tomentose beneath, glabrous above, lanceolate or lance- elliptic, broadly sessile or with an expanded, chartaceous, short-petiolar base, the larger ones mostly 10-15 נ1.5-3 cm; invols numerous, 3-4 mm, closely woolly-villous, shortly lobed; perianth closely woolly- villous outside, tapering to a shortly stipitate base; tep all alike, yellowish inside; filaments glabrous. Ours in cedar-glades; mainly Ozarkian, from Mo. and Kans. to La. and Tex., but irregularly e. to Ky., Tenn., Ala., and Fla. June-Oct. Our plants, as here described, belong to var. harperi (Goodman) Reveal, local in Ky. (Christian Co.), Tenn., and Ala. (E. harperi)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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