Herbs 12-35 cm tall, perennial. Rootstock stout. Stems many, erect or ascending, apically few branched, base densely covered with yellowish white or yellowish brown remains of leaf petiole and rachis. Lower stem leaves 2-15 cm, irregularly pinnately parted; segments 2 or 3, distant, needlelike, 3-20 × 0.5-3 mm, both surfaces sparsely gland-dotted otherwise glabrous, base widened and semiamplexicaul, margin entire, apex acuminate or sometimes obtuse and mucronate. Middle and upper stem leaves gradually smaller upward on stem, filiform, 1.5-3 cm, undivided. Capitula 1-4, solitary or in a lax corymbiform synflorescence. Involucre obconic, obovoid, or campanulate, 5-8 mm in diam. Phyllaries yellowish green, in 7 or 8 rows, glandular hairy, apex acute to acuminate and mucronate; outer phyllaries ovate; middle phyllaries narrowly ovate; inner phyllaries linear. Receptacle bristles subulate, 2-2.5 mm. Corolla purple, 1.2-1.5 cm, gland-dotted, tube 7-8 mm, limb 5-7 mm. Achene cylindric to ovoid, 4-or 5-angled, sparsely glandular. Pappus white; outer bristles 2-3 mm; inner bristles 9-10 mm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.
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