General: Perennial herb from a rhizome and tuberous-thickened root; stems erect, simple or few, branched above, hairless below the inflorescence or with a few coarse, spreading hairs, 0.6-2 m tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves lacking; lower leaves opposite; upper leaves alternate, lanceolate to linear, short-stalked, rough-hairy, 8-16 cm long, 6-30 mm wide, entire, flat, 3-nerved at the base.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, solitary to few, terminal; involucres 1.0-2.0 cm tall; involucral bracts lance-linear, loose, inconspicuously hairy on the margins; ray flowers 10-16, 1.5-3 cm long; disk flowers yellow; receptacles convex to low-conic.
Fruits: Achenes moderately compressed, usually glabrous; pappus of 2 readily deciduous awns with enlarged, thin, papery bases.
Wet to moist fields and meadows in the lowland and steppe zones; rare, known from several widely scattered locations in BC, probably introduced on S Vancouver Island and at Smithers; E to NF and S to MN, GA, NM, AZ, NV and OR.
