Foliage covered with stiff hairs that are rough to touch . Margins coarsely toothed. Stems often sparsely covered with short stiff hairs. Develops an extensive system of woody horizontal creeping roots with buds every few inches. Root fragments can produce new shoots from buds.
Plants are shallow-rooted in uncultivated soils, but develop deeper root systems on cultivated land.
Showy composite flower heads solitary on long peduncles. Ray flowers yellow. Unit of disk flowers flattened on top, usually dark reddish or purplish-brown . Ray flower corollas mostly greater than 2.5 cm long. Disk flower corollas 5-8 mm long with red to purple or yellow lobes.