Plants erect to spreading or ascending, 0.5-6 × 0.5-3(-5) dm, thinly pubescent. Leaves essentially basal; petiole 1-3(-4) cm; blade oblong to oblong-ovate, 0.5-3(-8) × 0.3-1(-2.5) cm, thinly pubescent or glabrous adaxially, usually densely tomentose abaxially. Inflorescences mostly flat-topped and open to densely branched, green to gray or reddish; bracts soon deciduous, 2, occasionally leaflike at proximal nodes and similar to proximal leaf blades only short-petiolate, more reduced and usually sessile, obovate, others linear and acicular, often acerose, (0.1-)0.2-0.5(-1) cm × 1-3(-6) mm, awns straight, 0.5-2 mm. Involucres usually congested terminally with 1 at node of dichotomies, reddish to purplish, cylindric, not ventricose, 3-4(-5) mm, often irregularly corrugate, without scarious or membranous margins, thinly pubescent; teeth spreading, unequal, 0.7-1.3(-1.5) mm with longest of 3 longer ones more erect than others, these alternating with 3 shorter and less-prominent ones; awns uncinate, 0.5-1 mm. Flowers mostly included; perianth rose to red, cylindric, 3-4(-5) mm, pubescent; tepals connate 1/ 2 their length, monomorphic to slightly dimorphic, oblong to obovate, rounded to obtuse or truncate apically, occasionally irregularly denticulate, those of outer whorl usually slightly broader and longer than those of inner whorl; stamens 9, mostly included; filaments distinct, 2.5-4(-4.5) mm, glabrous; anthers pink to red, oblong, 0.5-0.6 mm. Achenes brown, lenticular, 3-4 mm. 2n = 38, (40, 42).
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