Herbs 3-30 cm tall, perennial, glaucescent, glabrous. Roots and subterranean shoots often branched and slender. Caudex sometimes branched in older plants, with rosette leaves often well developed. Stem repeatedly divaricately and often intricately branched from base; branches few to numerous, usually rather delicate, ascending. Basal and lower stem leaves extremely variable, oblanceolate, ovate, elliptic, lanceolate, or more rarely linear, 2-8 × 0.2-2 cm, shallowly pinnatifid to pinnatisect or more rarely undivided, base attenuate into a 0.5-1.5 cm petiole-like portion, margin entire to sinuate-dentate, apex acute to rounded; lateral lobes (if present) (1-)3-5-paired, opposite or alternate, elliptic, linear, or toothlike, rarely pinnately divided. Middle and upper stem leaves similar to lower stem leaves but sessile or shortly petiolate and linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear, upward on stem gradually smaller. Synflorescence of each branch corymbiform and sometimes very densely so, with few to several capitula. Capitula with 9-13 florets; peduncle filiform, extremely variable in length and ranging from much longer than involucre to almost absent. Involucre narrowly cylindric, 6-10 × 2-3 mm. Phyllaries green, abaxially glabrous; outer phyllaries ovate to ovate-lanceolate, longest usually ca. 2 mm, apex acute to obtuse; inner phyllaries 8, margin narrow and scarious, apex acute to obtuse. Florets yellow. Corolla 0.9-1.1 cm. Anther tube 3-4 mm. Achene pale yellow, fusiform, 4-6 mm, apex attenuate. Pappus 4-6 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun-Oct. 2n = 14*.
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