Perennials, 20-50 cm; rhizomes 1-5 cm. Stems 1-6, ascending, sometimes reddish brown, usually simple, flexuous, slender, moderately sericeous, glabrescent. Leaves: basal equaling or shorter than cauline, persistent through winter, withering by flowering; cauline spreading to ascending, sessile, blades linear-lanceolate, 30-70 × 3-7 mm, apices acute, faces moderately sericeous, glabrescent; distal slightly reduced. Heads 3-20 per stem, in corymbiform arrays. Peduncles sparsely bracteolate, 1-11 cm, tomentose, sparsely, minutely glandular; bracteoles reduced distally. Involucres narrowly campanulate, (7-)8-11 mm (equaling pappi). Phyllaries in 4-6 series, margins hyaline, sometimes reddish distally, fimbriate (midnerves pronounced), apices acute, faces sparsely pilose, eglandular or sparsely, minutely stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 9-13; laminae 5-8 mm. Disc florets 25-45; corollas 5.5-7 mm, tubes and proximal throats sparsely puberulent, lobes 0.5 mm, glabrous or glabrate. Cypselae fusiform, 3-4 mm, ribbed (dark between ribs), faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of linear scales 0.3-1 mm, inner of 30-50 bristles 5.5-7 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer-fall. Sandy, open soils, open pine-oak woods, clearings; 0-50 m; Fla.

Pityopsis flexuosa is known only from the vicinity of Tallahassee.