Plants erect to spreading, (0.5-)1-3(-4) × 1-3 dm, appressed-pubescent. Leaves basal; petiole 1-3 cm; blade oblanceolate, 1-3 × 0.4-0.8 cm, thinly pubescent. Inflorescences with involucres in dense clusters 2-4 cm diam., greenish or reddish to purple; bracts 2-3 at proximal node, usually leaflike, often with whorl of sessile bracts about midstem, elliptic, 0.5-1.5 cm × 2-6 mm, becoming gradually lanceolate to elliptic, 0.2-1 cm × 1.5-5 mm, at distal nodes scalelike, linear and aciculate, acerose, awns straight, 1-3 mm. Involucres 3-10 or more, reddish to purplish, urceolate, slightly ventricose basally, 3.5-4 mm, without scarious or membranous margins, slightly corrugate, thinly pubescent with slender, curly hairs; teeth erect to spreading, unequal, 1-2 mm; awns uncinate, 0.5-1 mm with longer anterior one mostly 1 mm. Flowers exserted; perianth bicolored with floral tube white to yellow and tepals red, maroon, or dark purple, cylindric, 4-5 mm, glabrous or with few scattered hairs along midrib ca. midlength; tepals erect, connate 1/ 2 their length, dimorphic, obovate, those of outer whorl slightly longer than inner whorl, entire, rounded apically, those of inner whorl fimbriate and truncate or somewhat 2-lobed; stamens 9, exserted; filaments distinct, 4-5 mm, glabrous; anthers pink to red or maroon, oblong, 0.9-1 mm. Achenes brown, globose-lenticular, 3-3.5 mm. 2n = 38, 40, (48).
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