Annual or biennial to 0.8 m high. Stems with short scabrous and adpressed woolly hairs; wings absent. Cauline leaves linear, pinnatisect or entire, grey-green above and below, with short scabrous hairs; sessile glands present. Capitula solitary, pedunculate; involucre narrowly ovoid, 4.5–7.5 mm diam. at anthesis; median involucral bracts narrowly elliptic, 6–8 mm long, 1.3–2 mm wide, glabrous or with sparse arachnoid hairs; appendages c. 1.5 mm long, brown, with 4–6 pairs of stiff marginal cilia. Florets purple; inner (fertile) florets with tube 7–7.5 mm long, glandular, and lobes 2.5–3 mm long; sterile florets longer than fertile florets. Anthers 5–5.5 mm long. Achenes ellipsoid, c. 3.5 mm long, sparsely tomentose, pale brown. Longest pappus bristles 1.5–2 mm long, white.
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