Erect perennial herb in the Asteraceae (sunflower) family, woody at the base, 0.7 to 4 m (2.3 to 13 ft) tall, with sprawling horizontal lateral branches. Leaves are pinnately compound and bi- or tri-pinnatifid, or bipinnately compound, 7 to 29 cm (2.8 to 11 in) long. Flower heads are 5 to 20 in diffuse panicles or compound cymes terminating lateral branches only. Yellow ray and disk florets are often divergent so that flower heads have a loose, globose appearance. Achenes are brownish black, straight to curved, irregularly twisted or coiled, wingless or with narrow undulate wings. The subspecies pentamera with leaflets 5 to 9, shallow, and with ascending rounded toothed lobes.