Biennials (rarely perennials), 30–100(–200) cm; taprooted (rarely perennating by production of basal rosettes). Stems erect (often reddish purple), usually simple, glabrous. Leaves: basal blades oblanceolate to linear, 15–70 × 1–7 mm, faces glabrous or densely woolly; proximal cauline often becoming black and twisted; cauline blades linear or linear-lanceolate to oblong, flat, slightly undulate, or twisted, bases tapering to rounded, margins entire, eciliate, occasionally undulate, apices acute, faces glabrous. Heads (4–)20–100 in subumbelliform to compact, paniculiform or loosely open corymbiform arrays. Peduncles 2–8 cm, glabrous; bracteoles 1–3, linear, glabrous. Involucres campanulate, 6–10(–12) mm. Phyllaries in 4–5 series, erect, linear-lanceolate, unequal, 0.6–1.1 mm wide, apices, acute-appressed, acuminate to long-acuminate, faces glabrous, bases of outer sparsely stipitate-glandular. Ray florets 10–30; laminae 9–12 mm. Disc florets 35–60; corollas 5–6 mm, lobes 0.5–1 mm. Cypselae (stramineous) 2–2.5 mm, 2–6-ridged (ridges golden yellow to red-brown, translucent, clavate), weakly ribbed, faces sparsely strigose to sometimes only proximally so; pappi in 3 series, outer of linear to narrowly triangular scales 0.5–1 mm, inner of 20–35 bristles 4–6 mm, inner moderately clavate. 2n = 10.

Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora): Florida.

Chrysopsis linearifolia is disjunct between the central and western panhandle and the central peninsula.