Acaulescent perennial spiny herb, to ± 10 cm high; roots stout, grey.. Leaves all basal, appressed to the ground, forming a flat spiny rosette 15–80 cm in diameter, narrowly oblong to broadly (ob-)ovate in outline, pinnatifid to pinnatisect, 5–33 cm long, 1.5–8 cm wide, basally cuneate to attenuate into a rather broad, flattened, glandular-setose petioloid base, with 6–10 pairs of triangular-lobulate to-dentate lobes, spreading or somewhat ascending, the terminal lobe obtuse, with prominent pale yellow spines terminating the lobes and their teeth or lobules, with shorter marginal spines in between, glabrous or setose on the midrib, rarely scattered-setose above, setose on the midrib and main veins beneath, the midrib often purplish.. Capitula in clusters of 2–10 (rarely solitary) in the middle of the rosette, sessile or nearly so; involucre 25–40 mm long, phyllaries many (75–119), imbricate in 6–7 series, lanceolate or ovate, 3–36 mm long, acuminate-spinescent, ± reflexed, arachnoid-tomentose on the margins but rapidly glabrescent; receptacle with setae 5–8 mm long.. Florets many (121–160); corolla pale mauve or white, tube cylindrical proximally and expanded distally, 15–35 mm long, lobes 3.5–7 mm long, finely pubescent.. Achenes broadly fusiform, compressed, slightly angled or ribbed, 5–7 mm long, glabrous; pappus of numerous bristles 15–44 mm long, basally flattened and united into a ring, deciduous as a unit.
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