Herbs 7-20 cm tall, perennial. Caudex branched, with sterile leaf rosettes and flowering stems. Stem solitary, erect, simple, densely white lanate. Basal leaves sessile, narrowly linear, 3-14 × 0.1-0.2 cm, abaxially grayish white and densely lanate, adaxially green and glabrous, base widened and sheathlike, margin revolute and entire, apex acuminate. Stem leaves similar to basal leaves, reflexed, basally widened to a purple membranous sheath. Capitulum solitary, terminal on stem. Involucre subglobose, 1.8-2.5 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 4 or 5 rows, lanate; outer phyllaries narrowly ovate-elliptic, 7-15 × 2-4 mm, apically purple, apex long acuminate and reflexed; middle phyllaries narrowly ovate-elliptic, 9-15 × 1.5-3 mm; inner phyllaries linear, 10-15 × 1-2 mm. Corolla purple, 1.1-1.2 cm, glabrous, tube 4-5 mm, limb 6-7 mm, lobes 3-3.5 mm. Achene cylindric, ca. 3 mm, glabrous, apex with a short crown. Pappus pale yellowish brown; outer bristles 1-3 mm; inner bristles 1-1.2 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep. 2n = 32*.
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A herb. It grows 7-20 cm tall. It keeps growing from year to year. The leaves are in a ring. The stems are single and erect and have a white covering. The leaves are narrow and 3-14 cm long by 0.2 cm wide. They are greyish white underneath. There is one flower head.
A cool temperate plant. It grows in grasslands on mountain slopes and near gravel beaches between 4,500-4,700 m above sea level in Tibet.
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