Herbs 6-10 cm tall, perennial, polycarpic, caespitose. Caudex slender, branched, with several sterile leaf rosettes and flowering stems. Stem solitary, 2-5 mm in diam., erect or ascending, simple. Rosette and lower stem leaves petiolate; leaf blade spatulate to linear, 0.4-2 × 0.5-1.1 cm, white lanate, base attenuate, margin entire or crenate, apex obtuse to acuminate. Upper stem leaves linear, 1.5-3 × 0.2-0.3 cm, both surfaces densely white or yellowish lanate, margin entire or apically lobed, apex acuminate. Uppermost stem leaves narrowly triangular to linear, 1.5-3 × 0.2-0.3 cm, reflexed, both surfaces densely white or yellowish lanate, base purplish and widened, margin entire, apex acuminate. Capitula numerous, in a hemispheric synflorescence 3.5-4.5 cm in diam., sessile. Involucre cylindric, ca. 5 mm in diam. Phyllaries in several rows, narrowly obovate-linear, 1-1.4 cm, dark purple, subglabrous, apex acute. Receptacle without bristles. Corolla bluish purple, ca. 1.2 cm, tube 6-7 mm, limb ca. 5 mm, lobes ca. 2 mm. Achene black, 6-6.5 mm. Pappus pale brown, in 1 row; bristles ca. 1.1 cm, plumose. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
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