Plants 10–50 cm. Stems glabrous. Leaf blades green, 1-nerved, filiform, terete, 10–30 × 0.5–1 mm, not twisted, margins obscurely involute, not noticeably ciliate, apices acicular, faces hairy. Heads in rounded cymiform arrays. Involucres ± turbinate to obconic, 5–6 mm. Phyllaries 14–24 in 4–5 series, in 4–5 weak vertical ranks, (spreading at maturity) green to brown subapical patch, midnerves glandular-thickened distally, convex or weakly keeled, broadly linear to linear-oblong, unequal, margins scarious, eciliate or distally erose-ciliolate, apices sharply acute or apiculate, flat, faces glabrous. Disc florets 3–5; corollas 3.5–5 mm, lobes 1–1.2 mm. 2n = 18.