Perennial herbs, roots fibrous. Stems silvery green, erect, solitary or more often several strongly decumbent flowering branches from base, grayish tomentose, 15-60 cm tall. Basal leaves in rosettes, conspicuous first year, withered but persistent at anthesis, noticeably discolorous, oblong to spatulate, 3-10×0.8-2 mm, apex rounded to obtuse, short apiculate, base truncate, somewhat clasping, margins entire, flat or wavy toward tip; upper surface glabrescent or more commonly glabrous and bright green, midrib in a distinct furrow; lower surface appressed white tomentose, midrib white hairy, raised; cauline leaves remote, gradually diminishing in size upward, linear-oblong to spatulate, otherwise as rosette leaves. Spikes of numerous axillary clusters of heads, 3-6 cm long, more or less interrupted, leafy; leaves 0.5-3 cm long. Heads 2.5-3×2-2.5 mm when dry, glabrous. Involucre of 3 series; outer involucral bracts ovate-elliptic, ca. 2.5×0.6 mm, obtuse to acute; inner ones linear-oblong, rounded to obtuse, ca. 3 mm long. Outer florets 50-60, corolla ca. 2 mm long; central florets 3-5, pinkish purple, 2.1-2.5 mm long. Achenes oblong-elliptic, ca. 0.5 mm long, minutely glandular. Pappus white, ca. 2.5 mm long, connate at base into a ring, deciduous.

TAIPEI: Yangmingshan Natl. Park, Liao 282, Luchiaokeng Stream, Peng 10480, Chingshan Rd., Chen 939; Chihsingshan, Ying 19210 (Holotype of Gnaphalium liuii S. S. Ying).

Native of South America, adventive elsewhere. Taiwan, naturalized in the waste fields and roadsides around Yangmingshan National Park within the past decade, 400-1,000 m.