Herbs 5-15 cm tall, perennial, polycarpic. Caudex 3-10 mm in diam., creeping, branched, with sterile leaf rosettes and flowering stems. Stem solitary, 2-5 mm in diam., erect, simple, hidden by reflexed leaves. Rosette and stem leaves petiolate; leaf blade elliptic, 1.5-3 × 0.5-1.5 cm, both surfaces dark green, abaxially arachnoid but glabrescent, adaxially arachnoid but lanate in proximal part, margin dentate to subentire, apex acute. Uppermost stem leaves sessile, linear, 1-3 × 0.2-0.5 cm, reflexed, margin entire, apex acuminate. Capitula 8-20, in a hemispheric synflorescence 2.5-6 cm in diam., sessile. Involucre narrowly campanulate, 7-9 mm in diam. Phyllaries in 3 or 4 rows, light brown but apically blackish purple, margin hyaline; outer phyllaries obovate-oblong, 14-15 × 4-4.5 mm, apically arachnoid, apex acuminate; middle and inner phyllaries narrowly elliptic, (13-)15-16 × 3-4 mm, glabrous, apex acute. Receptacle bristles straw-colored, 4-5 mm. Corolla purplish red, 1.2-1.4 cm, tube 6-7 mm, limb 6-7 mm, lobes 3-3.5 mm. Achene brown, cylindric, 5-6 mm, smooth, glabrous. Pappus light brown; outer bristles few, 1.5-4 mm, scabrid or smooth, sometimes lacking; inner bristles 1.2-1.3 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
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