Small tussocky perennial, the leaf-rosettes conspicuously woolly in the centre, growing in clusters from a branching rhizome.. Leaves numerous, acicular, 1–3 cm. long, 0.4–0.8 mm. wide, thinly appressed-pilose to subglabrous, the narrowly obtuse tips often curving inwards.. Scapes several to many, flowering in succession, up to 25(–30) cm. high, 3-ribbed, pilose with patent glandular hairs especially immediately below the capitulum, some appressed pointed hairs also present; sheaths glandular-hairy, loose, the mouth inflated with open spathe-like limb.. Capitulum golden or dark brown, 5–6 mm. diameter, the bracts and sepals concolorous with the white petal-tubes visible between; outer involucral bracts oblong, obtuse, 1.5–1.8×0.8–1.0 mm., the inner progressively longer and narrowly elliptic-oblong, glabrous, innermost 2.0–2.5 mm. long, subacute, ciliate on the margins; receptacle villous.. Flowers 1.5 mm. long, brown; sepals of the female flowers lanceolate, margins pectinate-ciliate, usually glabrous on the back or a few hairs on the median sepal, tips subacute, often minutely denticulate; male sepals variably connate, sometimes almost free, subacute-denticulate, pilose at the base of the lobes.. Seeds uniformly brown at first, becoming white-striate when wetted.. Fig. 6/8–9.
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