Herbs 7-14 cm tall. Petiole long, narrow; leaf blade mid-green, linear-oblanceolate, 6-9(-12) × 0.5-0.9(-1.1) cm, ± glabrous, margin remotely lobulate or shallowly lobed; lateral segments in 1 or 2(or 3) pairs, subpatent to recurved; terminal lobe elongated, apex subobtuse. Scapes pale brownish green, slightly overtopping leaves, glabrous. Capitulum 3-3.5 cm wide. Involucre blackish, 5-7 mm wide, base narrowly rounded to slightly obconic. Outer phyllaries 5-9, black but often with a reddish apex, subimbricate, ovate-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, outermost ones 4.2-6 × 1.8-2.6 mm and 1/3-2/5 as long as inner ones, ± appressed, glabrous, paler border absent, apex flat; inner phyllaries blackish, 1.1-1.4 cm. Ligules (?pale) yellow; outer ligules flat, outside striped grayish pink; inner ligules with (probably) dark blackish 0.5-1 mm teeth. Stigmas blackish. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene dark brownish gray but reddish ochraceous when unripe, 5.2-5.3 × 1.1-1.2 mm; body subsparsely spinulose and sometimes also apically squamulose, apically subabruptly narrowing into a conic 0.7-0.8 mm cone, spinules subsparse, to 0.7 mm, thin, erect, and acute; beak (when unripe) more than 4 mm. Pappus white, 5.5-6.5 mm. Fl. late summer. Agamosperm.
Home