Herbs to 1 m tall. Stem purplish red, sparsely cobwebby. Leaves leathery, abaxially grayish white and densely felted, adaxially green and glabrous, margin with acicular spines to 5 mm. Lower cauline leaves with petiole 7-14 cm; leaf blade elliptic, 17-30 × 4-8 cm, pinnately divided; segments 4-6 pairs, elliptic to ovate. Middle and upper leaves similar but sessile, sometimes lanceolate to oblanceolate. Capitula 1 or 2, nodding. Involucre 5-7 cm in diam. Outer and middle phyllaries lanceolate to broadly linear, 0.8-3 × 0.2-0.4 cm, distally expanded into a scarious lacerate appendage apically narrowed into a 1-1.5 mm spine; inner phyllaries linear, ca. 3 × 0.3 cm, lacking an appendage. Corolla yellow, ca. 2.7 cm, tube ca. 9 mm. Achene brown, narrowly obovoid, ca. 5 mm, multistriate and with numerous ribs. Pappus bristles to 2.8 cm, serrulate. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
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