Plants acaulescent to bushy and mounding or erect, 5–100 cm. Stems usually 1, branched distally or openly so throughout, leafy, glabrous or thinly arachnoid-tomentose. Leaves: blades oblanceolate to elliptic, deeply pinnately lobed, longer spines slender to stout, usually 1 cm or shorter, abaxial faces usually green, glabrous or glabrate or thinly to densely tomentose, adaxial faces glabrous to sparingly villous with septate trichomes or thinly arachnoid-tomentose. Heads 2–many, subsessile or short-pedunculate, in ± congested corymbiform to subcapitate arrays at stem tips (in age clustered axillary heads often developing), subtended and ± overtopped by distal leaves or these ± reduced. Involucres 2.5–4 cm. P hyllaries: outer and mid lanceolate to ovate, spines 1–6 mm, slender and weak or broad and flat; apices of inner stiffly erect or thin and often contorted, acuminate and entire or rarely toothed. Corollas white or lightly purple-tinged (purple), (21–)26–35 mm, tubes (11–)14–22 mm, throats 6–9 mm, lobes (4–)5.5–8 mm; style tips 4–6 mm. Cypselae 4.5–5 mm; pappi 23–31 mm. 2n = 34 (as Cirsium loncholepis).
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