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Lower leaves ± crowded, radical or basal, sometimes withering early, up to c. 18 x 3 cm., narrowly obovate to oblanceolate, obtuse to acute at the apex, subentire to remotely serrate, narrowly cuneate or attenuate to the base, petiolate, sparsely pilose or glabrous; cauline leaves decreasing in size upwards, oblong-lorate to narrowly lanceolate, acute, ± abruptly narrowed to a sessile base; the uppermost leaves narrowly ovate-lanceolate, subtending and conduplicate about the synflorescence branches.
Phyllaries dark-purple or at least the apex purple, rarely green, extending onto the capitulum stalk and becoming somewhat foliaceous, narrowly lanceolate to linear, tapering to an attenuate-subulate apex, obscurely longitudinally ribbed, ± appressed sericeous or glabrescent below becoming spreading pilose above; the outer phyllaries from c. 6 mm. long; the inner phyllaries increasing to 10–13 mm. long and overtopping the pappus at anthesis.
Achenes 1.5–2.5 mm. long, turbinate, c. 5-ribbed, horizontally ridged and glandular between the ribs, villous at the base, ± setulose on the ribs; outer pappus of lanceolate-acuminate scales ± equalling the achene in length; inner pappus of barbellate setae 6–9 mm. long, purple, brownish-purple or sordid.
Stems solitary, branched above; indumentum a mixture of appressed-sericeous hairs and ± numerous patent many-celled hairs, or glabrescent.
Capitula few to many in a terminal stiff ± cymose arrangement, the central capitulum short-stalked and overtopped by the lateral capitula.
An erect perennial herb up to 55 cm. tall, from a thickened vertical rootstock with numerous spreading fibrous roots.
Corollas purple or brownish, 9–11 mm. long, tapering to base, lobes puberulent.
Involucres 12–15 mm. long, campanulate, later spreading.
Receptacle alveolate, alveolae walls shallowly dentate.