Perennial, glabrous and lactiferous herb with herbaceous, ascending to erect or spreading, naked, branched scapes, 10–60 cm tall. Leaves are oblong, pinnately lobed with ovate, triangular, or lunate lobes pointing toward the base, with white, denticulate margins, arranged in a basal rosette. Heads are borne on short peduncles, solitary or in clusters of 2–3 at the nodes along the branches, with bright yellow ligules. Involucre, 14 mm long, spreads widely at dispersal composed of 8 inner involucral bracts. Fruits are polymorphic, truncate, minutely tuberculate achenes: the outer achenes have five broad, subcompressed ribs, while the inner ones are columnar, greyish-white, with four broad ribs and a 4-lobed base.