Dwarf perennial herb with woody rootstock, precocious; rootstock 1–2.5 cm in diameter, crown often woolly and with conspicuous fibrous remnants of old leaf-bases.. Stems usually several from each crown, forming small cushions 5–16 cm high, pale green, minutely glandular-pubescent and sometimes also slightly arachnoid, glabrescent.. Leaves all basal, oblong to elliptic, 13–25 cm long, 1–4.5 cm wide, long-attenuate into petioloid base, margins crenate-serrate, apex acute to attenuate, arachnoid-pubescent above and beneath; stem-leaves scale-like, sessile, concave, pale green or brown, oblanceolate or lanceolate, 1–2.5 cm long, 0.2–0.5 cm wide, erose-denticulate, acuminate or acute, glabrous or sparsely arachnoid beneath, the uppermost constituting the calyculus.. Capitula erect, discoid, terminal, usually solitary; involucre broadly cylindrical, brownish, 15–22 mm long, 11–18 mm in diameter, glabrous or sparsely arachnoid at base; bracts of calyculus 5–8, broadly ovate to lanceolate, 10–20 mm long, acuminate or acute, shortly erose-denticulate; phyllaries 16–25, long-attenuate, 15–22 mm long, shortly ciliate at margins near apex.. Ray florets absent; disc florets white or cream, anthers fully exserted, corolla 15.5–20 mm long, tube abruptly expanded and campanulate in upper one-sixth, shortly hairy on the narrow cylindrical lower part, lobes 2–2.5 mm long.. Achenes when mature 11 mm long, densely long-hairy; pappus 8–22 mm long, white.
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