Stems much branched, branches straggling, flexuous, woody toward base. Cauline leaves oblanceolate-oblong, 3.5-4×1-1.8 cm, apex obtuse or rounded, base narrowed into petiole, margins irregularly toothed or lyrate-pinnatilobed, lobes often obtuse, mucronulate and irregularly mucronulate-dentate, sparsely pilose on both surfaces, upper leaves about same size as median ones. Heads globose, 4-6 mm across, short pedunculate, peduncle 3-12 mm long, few bracteate or not. Involucre depressed hemispheric, 6×1 mm, bracts in 1 or 2 series, outer bracts shorter, ovate, acute, others oblong, obtuse, scarious. Corolla of outer florets 0.7 mm long; corolla of central florets 1.3 mm long, 5-dentate. Achenes cylindric, 0.5 mm long, glandular-punctate.

TAOYUAN: Suzuki s. n. 1941. HSINCHU: Lienhuassu, Peng 7234, 11508. MIAOLI: Houlung, Kao 7364.

India, southern China to Australia. Taiwan, rice fields, roadsides, depressions and along ditches and ponds, near the sea, rare.

Many specimens of Grangea maderaspatana (tribe Astereae) in Taiwan herbaria were mis-identified as this species (tribe Inuleae). In fact, plates of these two species were switched in the first edition of the Flora of Taiwan. The two species are somewhat similar in their much branched, diffuse stems, spatulate leaves and axillary or lateral, leaf-opposed heads. But besides the distinctly tailed anthers and other minute floral characters in Epaltes australis, it can readily be distinguished from G. maderaspatana by its nearly glabrous stems and leaves, smaller heads (4-6 mm vs. 8-9 mm across), achenes without pappus and sub-coriaceous involucral bracts arranged in several series.