Herbs, biennial or short-lived perennial, 2.5-25 cm tall; rhizome weak. Stems solitary, 1-2.5 mm in diam. at base, erect or ascending, simple, or rarely branched, green or sometimes purple-red, densely hirsute, strigillose. Leaves few, margin and petiole hirsute-ciliate, surfaces glabrous or glabrate to sparsely hirsute; basal withered at anthesis, long petiolate, petiole base subclasping, blade oblanceolate, 1-3(-7) × 0.2-0.4 cm, base attenuate, apex obtuse to rounded, mucronate; cauline 4-7, sessile, blade linear or linear-lanceolate, 1-4 × 0.1-0.3 cm, apex acute, uppermost often overtopping capitula. Capitula usually solitary, or sometimes 2-8 in racemose synflorescences, ca. 0.8 × 1.5-1.8 cm. Involucre hemispheric; phyllaries 3-seriate, green or purple at apex, linear-lanceolate, (5-)8-9 × 0.6-1 mm, abaxially sparsely villous-hirsute, outer 1/2 as long as inner or less, inner conspicuously exceeding disk florets, margin scarious. Ray florets 2-or 3-seriate, pale violet, 6-7 mm, tube ca. 2 mm, hairy above, lamina involute when dry; disk florets yellowish, 4-4.5 mm, hairy, tube ca. 1.5 mm, limb cylindric, lobes lanceolate, ca. 0.6 mm, purple tinged, anthers and style branches not exserted from corolla. Achenes narrowly oblong, compressed, 2-2.5 × ca. 0.6 mm, strigose. Pappus 2-seriate, yellowish, outer bristles ca. 0.5 mm, inner 4.5-5 mm. Fl. Jul-Sep.
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