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A stiff bushy shrub up to 1 m tall, stems very leafy, the lower parts becoming leafless with age and spinescent from the persistent leaf bases. Leaves rigid, sessile, clasping, up to 9 cm long, decreasing slightly in size upwards, oblong in outline, pinnatifid, the rhachis linear, 2-4 mm broad, lobes up to 14 x 4 mm, distant, linear-lanceolate, spine-tipped, paired, the upper much shorter than the lower, margins entire, revolute, sometimes with a few slender spines, upper surface glabrous, lower white-felted. Heads 5-9 cm across the expanded rays, solitary or few together at the tips of the branches. Involucral bracts linear, up to 3 mm broad, otherwise much resembling the leaves. Rays white or white tinged mauve, disc mauve. Achenes 2-3 mm long, turbinate, glabrous. Pappus scales c. 1 mm long, more or less oblong.
