Herbs 20-25 cm tall. Stem solitary, grayish white, erect, unbranched, unwinged, lanate. Leaves leathery, discolorous, abaxially grayish white and thickly lanate, adaxially green, glabrous, and shiny. Middle cauline leaves sessile, elliptic, 10-20 × 2.5-4 cm, pinnatifid or pinnatipartite; segments 7-10 pairs, broadly ovate to broadly triangular, with 3-5 teeth tipped with 3-10 mm spines; upper cauline leaves toothed, with unequal triangular spine-tipped and pectinately spiny teeth. Capitula 3-8, clustered at end of stem; small capitula usually present in leaf axils below main cluster. Involucre ovoid to campanulate, 2.5-3.5 cm in diam., densely lanate. Outer phyllaries lanceolate-subulate, ca. 2 × 0.3 cm, apex narrowed into a pungent ca. 1.1 cm spine; middle phyllaries ± narrowly elliptic to linear-subulate, 2.5-3 × 0.2-0.3 cm, with a 1.2-1.5 cm apical spine; inner phyllaries lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2.5-3 × 0.1-0.3 cm, apex acuminate and softly spiny. Corolla purple, ca. 2.2 cm, tube ca. 1.4 cm. Achene gray and dark variegated, long cuneate-ellipsoid, ca. 7 mm. Pappus bristles brownish, to 2 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul.
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