Dwarf, tufted perennial to 10 cm high at flowering, forming small clumps from branching, woody rhizome; stems erect, cobwebby or thinly felted, flushed purple. Leaves crowded at base of stems, basal foliage leaves spathulate in outline, softly leathery, blade suborbicular, 15-35 mm diam., weakly folded along midline and coarsely 7-or 9-dentate, primary teeth excurrent in pale, relatively soft spine ± 3 mm long, with smaller secondary and tertiary antrorse spines 1-2 mm long between primary spines, cobwebbed or thinly felted on both surfaces and with scattered minute, gland-tipped hairs, glabrescent above, veins raised beneath, narrowed into petiole-like base 15-25 mm long, more densely cobwebbed than blade; cauline leaves smaller, lanceolate, 10-20 x 3-6 mm, sessile and weakly amplexicaul, weakly 3-or 4-jugate, teeth excurrent into soft spines ± 3 mm long and with 1 or 2 smaller antrorse spines along margins between primary spines, thinly felted on both surfaces and with scattered minute, gland-tipped hairs. Capitula 1-3 in shortly pedunculate racemes, discoid, 25-40 mm across involucre and 15-20 mm across disc; involucral bracts 4-or 5-seriate, bracts basally connate for ± 5 mm, patent-reflexed, narrowly lanceolate, flat, apex excurrent in a yellowish spine 2-3 mm long, outer and median series with 3-5 pairs of patent spines similar to apical spine, outer surface thinly cobwebbed and with minute, gland-tipped hairs, innermost bracts with 1-3 pairs of spines in distal half grading into several antrorse spinules in basal half, glabrous except towards apex, outer one or two series mostly 6-8 x 2-3 mm, median two series 10-12 x 3 mm, inner series oblong-lanceolate, 5-6 x 1.5 mm; receptacle deeply alveolate, margins irregularly fimbriate with straw-like spinules 0.5-1.0 mm long. Corolla funnel-shaped, yellow, densely glandular-pubescent on tube and more sparsely along lobe margins, ± 7 mm long, tube ± 3.5 mm long, lobes erect, narrowly lanceolate, ± 3.5 mm long, penicillate. Stamens: anthers tailed, with lanceolate apical appendage, ± 4 mm long; endothecial cells with inner periclinal wall thickenings not evidently displaced. Achenes turbinate, ± 2.5 mm long, 10-ribbed, those of outer florets densely antrorsely pubescent with short, twin hairs but inner achenes progressively more glabrous. Pappus scales sub-biseriate, ± 20, oblong-obovate, denticulate, outer series slightly shorter than inner, 1.0-1.5 x 0.5 mm. Pollen lophate.
Home