Plants 10-18 dm, thinly tomentose. Leaves: basal leaf blade 10-15 × 1.5-2.5 cm, tomentose abaxially, sparsely floccose or glabrous adaxially. Peduncles 0.3-0.8 cm. Involucres turbinate, 3-3.5 × 1.5-2.5 mm. Flowers 5-7 mm, including 0.5-1(-1.2) mm stipelike base. Achenes 4-4.5 mm. 2n = 40.

Flowering Jun-Sep. Sandy to gravelly, often calcareous flats, bluffs, outcrops, and slopes, oak and conifer woodlands; 100-300 m; Ala., Ky., Tenn.

Variety harperi is known only from scattered populations in Alabama (Colbert and Franklin counties), Kentucky (Christian County), and Tennessee (DeKalb, Putnam, Smith, and Wilson counties). The Kentucky record is based on a report indicating that the plant had been extirpated there.