Perennials, 30-60 cm, colonial; long-rhizomatous. Stems 1-5+, as­cend­ing to erect, densely puber­ulent to lanate, especially distally. Leaves thin, margins entire, apices acute, faces densely lanate-puberulent; basal often withering by flowering, subpetiolate, blades oblanceolate, 15-50 × 5-20 mm, bases cuneate, margins entire, apices acute, faces densely lanate; proximal cauline sessile or subpetiolate, blades oblanceolate, 50-150 × 10-25 mm, bases slightly clasping, rarely auriculate; distal sessile, blades lanceolate, 30-100 × 10-20 mm, reduced distally, bases tapered, ± auriculate, apices acute. Heads in corymbiform to paniculiform arrays, branches to 20 cm. Peduncles densely cinereous to lanate, bracts 0-3, lanceolate to narrowly ovate. Involucres campanulate, 7-9 mm. Phyllaries in 4-5(-6) series, squarrose, oblong to oblanceolate, unequal, bases of outer indurate less than ¹ / 3 , margins entire, green zones oblong-linear to oblanceolate, apices acute or obtuse (sometimes minutely mucronate), faces densely puberulent to lanate. Ray florets 20-35; corollas violet, laminae 12-20 × 1-2 mm. Disc florets 35-70; corollas yellow, 5-6.5 mm, lobes triangular, 0.5-1 mm. Cypselae brown, cylindric to obovoid, not compressed, 2.5-3.5 mm, 4-5-nerved, faces hairy; pappi whitish, 5-7 mm. 2n = 32.

Flowering Aug. Dry montane meadows; 2000-3000 m; Wyo.

Symphyotrichum molle is known only from the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Because of its densely hairy leaves, stems, and involucres, it was compared by its author with S. jessicae, a narrow endemic of southeastern Washington and adjacent Idaho.