Herbs 2-5 cm tall, perennial, stemless or substemless. Caudex simple or few branched. Rosette leaves sessile, linear, 2-12 × 0.1-0.2(-0.4) cm, leathery, both surfaces green, shiny, and glabrous, margin entire and revolute, apex obtuse. Innermost leaves gradually merging into phyllaries. Capitulum solitary in center of leaf rosette, sessile or on a peduncle to 4 cm. Involucre narrowly campanulate, 0.6-1.5 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 4 or 5 rows; outer phyllaries with straw-colored, leathery proximal part and with a green, herbaceous distal part, glabrous, proximal part ovate, 8-10 × 3-5 mm, distal part linear, 1-4 × 0.1-0.2 cm, margin revolute, apex obtuse; middle phyllaries with gradually reduced herbaceous part, narrowly ovate-elliptic, 11-15 × 2-3 mm, glabrescent, apex acute to obtuse; inner phyllaries narrowly elliptic to linear, 15-17 × 1-2 mm, apically purplish, margin membranous, apex obtuse and mucronate or acuminate. Receptacle usually naked, rarely with 1-2 mm yellowish bristles. Corolla bluish purple, 1.6-2.2 cm, tube 0.8-1.5 cm, limb 5-7 mm, lobes 4.5-5 mm. Achene brown, cylindric, 3.5-4 mm, 5-ribbed, glabrous, tuberculate. Pappus dirty white; outer bristles 4-5 mm, plumose; inner bristles 1.2-1.3 cm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.
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