Herbs 2.5-6 cm tall, perennial, stemless or shortly stemmed. Caudex short, simple or few branched. Rosette leaves sessile, narrowly obovate-elliptic to linear, 1.5-13 × 0.3-1.2 cm, rigid and leathery, glabrous, abaxially pale green, adaxially green and shiny, base cuneate-attenuate, margin entire, revolute, and ciliate, apex acute. Uppermost leaves gradually merging into phyllaries. Capitulum solitary, in center of leaf rosette, sessile. Involucre campanulate, 1-2.5 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 4 or 5 rows; outer phyllaries with brown leathery basal part and a green herbaceous reflexed apical part, glabrous, basal part ovate and 7-10 × 3-5 mm, apical part linear-oblong and 0.7-3 × 0.4-1 cm, margin revolute and ciliate, apex acute; middle phyllaries ovate-elliptic, 10-15 × 3-5 mm, with a gradually reduced herbaceous apical part, apex acute; inner phyllaries narrowly elliptic to linear, 12-18 × 2-3 mm, brown but apically purple, apex acuminate. Receptacle without bristles. Corolla bluish purple to blackish purple, 1.5-1.7(-2) cm, tube 8-9(-12) mm, limb 7-8 mm, lobes 4.5-5 mm. Achene brown, cylindric, ca. 4 mm, glabrous. Pappus pale brown; outer bristles 4-8 mm, plumose; inner bristles 1.2-1.3 cm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.
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