Introduced, cool-season, annual, erect, somewhat glaucous herb, 15–90 cm tall, with striate stems. Leaves are variable, sessile, lyrate-pinnatisect or ovate, 1.5–14 cm long, 0.8–6 cm wide and hairless; margins are more or less irregularly toothed. Heads are in slender corymbs or rarely solitary, 4–5 mm diam. Florets are tubular and purple, or rarely orange-purple; ray florets are absent. Fruit are achenes 3 mm long, 5-ribbed and very shortly pilose, with a white pappus 6–8 mm long. Flowering is in late winter and spring. A native of Asia, it is a weed on roadsides and open areas; north from Wauchope.