Lone fleabane

Perennials, 0.8–7 cm (cespitose); taprooted, caudex branches usually lignescent, sometimes relatively elongate. Stems erect (greenish), sparsely loosely strigose to hirsuto-villous, usually densely villous distally, eglandular. Leaves all or mostly basal (persistent; petiole base margins spreading-ascending-ciliate); (greenish) spatulate, blades elliptic-obovate to suborbiculate, 10–40 × (1.5–)2–6 mm (bases abruptly contracted to petioles), margins entire (apices rounded to obtuse), faces strigose to hirsuto-villous, less densely so abaxially, eglandular. Heads 1. Involucres 3–5 × 7–10 mm. Phyllaries in 2–3 series (margins purplish), hirsuto-villous, sometimes sparsely minutely glandular (midregions and near apices). Ray florets 22–30; corollas white to pink, often with broad pink abaxial midstripe, 6–7 mm, laminae not coiling or reflexing, spreading. Disc corollas 2–2.4 mm. Cypselae 1.3–1.8 mm, 2-nerved, faces sparsely strigose; pappi: outer of setae, inner of 14–22 bristles.

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora): w United States.