Stems glabrous. Leaves margins ciliate, faces glabrous. Ray corollas blue to pinkish. Disc corollas 4.5–6 mm. Cypselae glabrous or glabrate.

Flowering Apr–Jun. Mesic slopes and alluvial forests, sandstone soils on or near the western margin of the Appalachian Plateau (most abundant in the Cliff Section of the Cumberland Plateau); 100–1000 m; Ky., Ohio, W.Va.

Stems and leaves both are glabrous in the weakly delimited var. brauniae. Plants with glabrous leaf faces occur sporadically in various parts of the range of var. pulchellus (Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and West Virginia); in those plants, stems usually are sparsely hirsuto-villous.