Herbs 5-15 cm tall, perennial, polycarpic. Caudex 1-4 mm in diam., branched, with sterile leaf rosettes and flowering stems. Stem solitary, 2-3 mm in diam., erect, simple. Rosette and lower stem leaves distinctly petiolate; leaf blade obovate, elliptic, ovate, or orbicular, 1.5-10 × 0.5-3(-5) cm, green but becoming purplish red, abaxially usually reddish and glabrous, adaxially sparsely white arachnoid but glabrescent, base cuneate-attenuate, margin dentate, apex rounded to acuminate. Uppermost stem leaves sessile, narrowly elliptic to linear, both surfaces white and brownish lanate, apex acuminate and usually reflexed. Capitula (1 or)2-5(-13), in a hemispheric synflorescence 2-5 cm in diam. or rarely solitary, sessile. Involucre campanulate, 1-1.5(-2) cm in diam. Phyllaries in ca. 4 rows, straw-colored, apically white and brown lanate, apex acuminate; outer phyllaries narrowly triangular-ovate, 10-12(-18) × 3-4 mm; middle and inner phyllaries narrowly elliptic-linear, 12-14(-18) × 1.5-3 mm. Receptacle bristles filiform, to 1 mm. Corolla dark red or pink, 1.2-1.7 cm, tube 6-11 mm, limb 6-7 mm, lobes 3-4 mm. Achene ivory-colored, cylindric, (5-)7-8 mm, 5-ribbed, smooth, glabrous. Pappus straw-colored; outer bristles 0.5-1.5 mm; inner bristles 1-1.3(-1.6) cm. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep. 2n = 28*.
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