Microphyllidious subshrubs 5-10 dm with stiff straight annotinous stems widely few-branched and densely leafy distally, thinly puberulent nearly throughout with fine erect white hairs <0.2 mm, the young stems, the lf-axes, the dorsal face of lfts and all units of inflorescence in addition beset with red-brown granular or coralloid trichomes, the shortly pedunculate capitula solitary in a few distal lf-axils, nestled in foliage; phyllotaxy distichous. Stipules erect, narrowly ovate or lanceolate 1.54.5 x 0.7-1.8 mm, faintly 1-nerved dorsally, caducous. Lf-formula (ii—)iii—iv/(22—)25—37; lvs nearly sessile, the lf-stk of longer ones 6-18 mm, the petiole often reduced to discolored pulvinus, 1-2.5 x 1.2-1.5 mm, the longer interpinnal segments 2.5-9 mm, the ventral groove bridged at insertion of pinnae; pinnae either equilong or the furthest shorter, the rachis of longer ones 30-47 mm, the longer interfoliolar segments 0.45 1.1 mm; lft-pulvinules 0.1-0.25 mm; lfts equilong except at very ends of rachis, the blades oblong-elliptic from obtusely auriculate base, obtuse or deltately subacute, the longest 3-4.5 x 1.1-1.5 mm, 2.5-3.2 times as long as wide; venation faint, the straight simple midrib forwardly displaced to divide blade 1:2.55, prominulous only dorsally, a short posterior primary venule sometimes faintly perceptible. Peduncles 5-12 mm, ebracteate; capitula 3—6-fld, the fls sessile, the receptacle subtruncate; bracts resembling stipules in form and texture, 1.54.5 mm, caducous; perianth firm, reddish-granular overall, the calyx 4-merous, the corolla (2-)3-4-merous, further described in key to varieties; androecium 42-51- merous, 24-40 mm, the stemonozone 0.6-2.1 mm, the tube 5-7 mm, the tassel red; stamen-tube thickened internally, but no nectary differentiated; ovary substipitate, glabrous at anthesis. Pods (of var. coccinea) ±4.5 x 0.7 cm, densely tomentulose overall with mixed simple gray and brown coralloid trichomes, the recessed valves not evidently venulose; seeds not seen.

The five known collections of C. coccinea are nearly uniform in foliage, in reddish-brown granular indumentum of the perianth, and in the red-tasseled androecium, but are remarkably dissimilar in the inner whorl of the perianth. I feel obliged to discriminate taxonomically between these florally differentiated forms.