Herbs 50-100 cm tall, perennial. Stems grayish white, unbranched or apically with short branches, with fibrous petiole remains at base, lower half bristly and cobwebby to lanate, below synflorescences densely and thickly cobwebby to lanate. Leaves papery, abaxially whitish to grayish white and thickly cobwebby to densely lanate, adaxially green and usually glabrous. Basal and lower cauline leaves long petiolate; leaf blade elliptic, 25-30 × 8-13 cm, pinnatipartite, base enlarged and semiamplexicaul; segments 5-8 pairs, elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, on one side with 1 or more triangular spiny teeth. Middle and upper cauline leaves similar but sessile, pinnately lobed or pinnatifid, semiamplexicaul. Pseudocephalia 1-7, ca. 6 cm in diam. Capitula 1.9-2.1 cm. Phyllaries 18-22, abaxially glabrous; outermost phyllaries oblanceolate, 7-8 mm, 1/3-2/5 as long as involucre, claw margin shortly ciliate, distal portion brown, rhombic to broadly elliptic, and margin shortly ciliate; middle phyllaries oblanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate-elliptic, 1.3-1.8 cm, margin shortly ciliate, abruptly constricted from maximum width into a spiny tip; inner phyllaries linear, ca. 1.5 cm. Corolla blue, outside apically gland-dotted. Achene ca. 6.5 mm, hairs yellowish. Pappus scales linear, ca. 2 mm, connate at base. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.
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