Herbs to 1.2 m tall, perennial. Stem solitary, erect, branched above, ribbed, unwinged, with sparse long multicellular hairs; synflorescence branches usually sparsely cobwebby. Leaves undivided, concolorous, green, surface smooth but with long multicellular hairs. Middle cauline leaves sessile, lanceolate, 10-15 × 1.5-3 cm, auriculate semiamplexicaul, fringed with spinules less than 0.5 mm, apex acute. Upper cauline leaves similar but narrower and gradually smaller upward. Capitula erect, laxly corymbose. Involucre ovoid, 1.5-2 cm in diam., glabrous or sparsely cobwebby. Phyllaries imbricate, in ca. 7 rows, lacking marginal spinules, wings, and scarious appendage, abaxially glabrous; outer phyllaries triangular, ca. 6 × 1.2 mm, apex acuminate and tipped with a ca. 1 mm spinulose acumen; middle phyllaries ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, ca. 7 × 2-2.2 mm, tipped with an acumen less than 0.5 mm; inner phyllaries lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 8-15 × 1.5-2 mm, apex acuminate and scarious. Florets bisexual. Corolla purplish red, ca. 2 cm, tube ca. 1 cm. Achene brownish, ca. 4 mm. Pappus bristles white, ca. 1.5 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct. 2n = 34.
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A herb. It is a thistle. It grows 1.2 m tall. It keeps growing from year to year. The leaves are 10-15 cm long by 2-3 cm wide. The upper leaves are smaller.
Forests, by rivers, by water; at elvations from 1,200-2,600 metres. Thin coniferous, mixed, and deciduous forests, forest edges, river banks, tall herb meadows, reaching up to the lower belt of the Alpine zone.
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It is a temperate plant. It grows on mountain slopes and beside rivers between 1,200-2,600 m above sea level in western China.
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