Leaves oblong to linear-lanceolate, 8–26 (usually c. 15) cm long, 0.8–2.5 cm wide, often ± entire, green with midrib green or purple; petiole usually purple at base, very narrowly winged. Dissected leaves with lateral lobes in 6 or 7 (8) pairs, short, blunt, deltoid to falcate; distal margins of upper 2 or 3 lobes with up to 5 teeth, 1 or 2 teeth sometimes enlarged into a short lobe; terminal lobe rounded to acutely trilobulate. Scapes 4–18 cm long at anthesis, 8–30 cm long in fruit, white-woolly in bud, glabrous at flowering. Capitula 15–20 mm diam.; outer bracts ovate to ovate-lanceolate, (2.5–) 5–7 (–10) mm long, 1.5–2.5 mm wide, appressed to next series, white-bordered (0.5–1 mm wide), fimbriate marginally, apiculate with a dark, smooth thickening; innermost bracts linear, (12–) 17–19 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide, not thickened at tips. Outer florets with ligule involute, subequal to involucre, pale lemon-yellow. Achenes fusiform, 4–6 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, with ± straight, flattened spines c. 0.2 mm long at apex, verrucate below, but smooth in lower ⅓, yellow-brown, dark grey, or red to blackish purple; cone cylindrical, 1–1.5 (–2) mm long; beak 6.5–9 (–11) mm long, longer than body of achene. Pappus 5–7 mm long.
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