Herbs, perennial, 4-10 cm; rhizomes creeping or ascending, caudices stout, multibranched, sometimes with long, slender stolons bearing rosettes. Stems erect or ascending, simple, densely white lanate, sparsely minutely stipitate glandular, collar with marcescent leaf petioles. Leaves basal and cauline; cauline leaves abruptly reduced, densely white lanate, margin entire; basal leaves present at anthesis, long petiolate (petiole to 2 cm); blade spatulate, 0.6-1.5 × 0.4-0.8 cm, base attenuate, midvein visible, inconspicuously 3-veined, apex rounded to obtuse; middle cauline leaves spatulate, 0.6-0.8 cm; upper cauline leaves linear, often surrounding involucre. Capitula terminal, solitary, ca. 4.5 cm in diam. Involucres broadly campanulate, 12-15 mm; phyllaries 3-seriate, oblong-lanceolate, densely lanate; outer phyllaries sometimes squarrose, 8-12 × 1.5-2 mm, multiveined, apex acuminate, tip purplish; inner phyllaries 10-12 × ca. 1.5 mm. Ray florets 38-40, deep blue, tube and lamina base hairy, eglandular, lamina 10-16 × ca. 2 mm; disk florets orange becoming purplish, 6.5-7 mm, limb funnelform, ca. 5 mm, sparsely villosulous, lobes erect, triangular, ca. 1 mm, lanate. Achenes (immature) narrowly obovoid, compressed, ca. 3 mm, densely strigillose, 4-ribbed. Pappus 4-seriate, straw-colored, sometimes apically reddish, bristles barbellate; outermost series of numerous, white scales 0.7-1 mm; outer bristles slender, 4-5 mm; inner bristles 6-7 mm, acute; innermost bristles 7-8 mm, weakly clavate. Fl. Aug-Sep.
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