Rhizome relatively thickish, woody. Sobols and stolons with dense scalelike withered leaves and terminal rosette leaves, caespitose with flowering stems. Stems erect, 15-25 cm, slender, unbranched, densely ash-gray lanate, rather densely leafy. Basal and lower leaves caducous and lost by anthesis, small, spatulate-oblong; middle leaves dense, erect or spreading, oblong-lanceolate, 2-3 × 0.4-1 cm, base acute, decurrent on stems and becoming a narrow or cuneate wing, usually semiamplexicaul, margin recurved when dry, apex acute, with small cusp; upper leaves linear-lanceolate; all leaves pallid or white lanate abaxially, dark green adaxially, appressed or arachnoid tomentose, sometimes glabrate, lustrous, midvein exserted abaxially, midvein and 3 veins flat or somewhat excavated adaxially, apical leaves 1-veined. Capitula 10-30, dense, corymbiform; peduncle 1-3 mm. Involucre campanulate, 6-8 × 5-6 mm; phyllaries 5-or 6-seriate; outer phyllaries dark brownish, oval-lanceolate, ca. 3.5 mm, arachnoid tomentose; middle ones oblong-lanceolate, 5-6 mm, ca. 2 mm wide in male florets, ca. 1.5 mm wide in female florets, white except for base (yellow when dried), apex obtuse or acute; innermost ones lingulate or lanceolate-linear, ca. 4 mm, with a claw ca. 2/3 of full length. Receptacle with fimbrillate short hairs. Center of predominantly female capitula with female florets and 1-3 male florets; predominantly male capitula with male florets only. Corolla 3.5-4 mm. Pappus longer than corolla; upper part of pappus of male florets thickish and flat, dentate. Ovary 0.8-1 mm, almost glabrous. Achene oblong, ca. 0.7 mm, with dense mammilla. Fl. Aug-Sep.
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