Subshrubs or perennial herbs, 20-40 cm tall. Rootstock 4-10 mm in diam. Caudex branched, with smooth scarious leaf sheath residues. Stems some to many, grayish green, slender, erect, repeatedly divaricately and intricately branched from base, pubescent or glabrous, basally woody; branches slender, ascending-erect. Basal leaves few, distant, linear, early deciduous. Stem leaves linear to filiform, 2-10 × 1-3 mm, apex usually hooked; upper stem leaves bractlike, inconspicuous. Capitula many, terminal, with 4 or 5 (to 12-15 in var. sublilacina) florets. Involucre narrowly cylindric, ca. 1 cm at anthesis, 1.5-1.7 × 0.3-0.4 cm in fruit. Phyllaries puberulent, pubescent, or sparsely pubescent in fruit; outer phyllaries few, ovate to lanceolate, longest ca. 1/2 as long as inner phyllaries; inner phyllaries usually ca. 4. Florets yellow (or pale purple in var. sublilacina). Achene pale yellow to yellowish brown, cylindric, 7-9 mm, with smooth ribs, glabrous or apically villous. Pappus straw-colored to brownish, ca. 1.5 cm. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.
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A herb or small shrub. It keeps growing from year to year. It grows 20-40 cm tall. The top of the root stock is branched and has the residue or leaf sheaths. There can be several stems. They are greyish green. They are frequently branched. The leaves on the stem are narrow and 2-10 mm long by 1-3 mm wide. There is usually a hook at the end.
Well-drained dry grassy and rocky habitats. Dry river beds, lowland sand dunes, gullies, valleys, hills, slopes, plains at base of mountains at elevations of 500-2000 metres in N. China.
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It is a temperate plant. In north China it grows in dry riverbeds and lowland sand dunes between 500-2,000 m above sea level.
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