Shrublets 10-25 cm tall, cushion-forming, rosulate. Taproot woody. Caudex woody, branching with age, densely covered with residues of old leaf bases. Stems many, slender, rigid, hardened, erect, repeatedly, dichotomously, intricately, and divaricately branched almost from base, glabrous. Rosette leaves oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 2-8 × 0.5-3 cm, glabrous, pinnatifid to pinnatisect, basally attenuate; lateral lobes 5 or 6 pairs, broadly triangular toothlike to narrowly linear, unequal in length, margin entire, apex acute. Stem leaves few, much smaller, otherwise similar to basal leaves or linear to linear-subulate, reduced in size, undivided, and often bractlike. Synflorescence of each stem divaricately corymbiform, with some capitula. Capitula with 10-12 florets. Involucre narrowly cylindric, 8-9 mm. Phyllaries dark green, abaxially glabrous to slightly puberulent, frequently crested or corniculate below apex; outer phyllaries few, narrowly ovate to lanceolate, longest ca. 2 mm, apex acute; inner phyllaries 8, apex ± obtuse. Achene black to blackish, fusiform, 3.5-5.5 mm, with 10 ribs, shortly scabrid, apex attenuate. Pappus white, 4-6 mm, caducous. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep. 2n = 42.
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