A caespitose ± bushy perennial herb, 10–30 cm. tall from a semi-woody rootstock; rootstock narrowly obconic or turbinate, up to c. 10 x 2 cm. Stems annual many densely leafy, branched, araneose-puberulous, somewhat glandular-viscid. Leaves subsessile, mostly 10–45(70) x 2–3(6) mm., linear, subobtuse at the apex, sharply callose-tipped serrulate on the margins, green drying darker and glandular otherwise glabrous on the upper surface, densely greyish-lanate beneath. Capitula numerous, solitary and terminal on leafy branches or short shoots, sessile subtended by 2-many leaves. Involucres mostly 10–15 mm. long, up to c. 15 mm. in diam., spreading to c. 20 mm. in diam., obconic. Phyllaries stiffly thinly coriaceous, shortly pungent at the apex, minutely serrulate on the margins, usually with a purplish groove on either side of a broad midrib, glabrous rarely puberulous; the outer c. 6 series each with many phyllaries, less than half the involucre in length, from c. 1.5 mm. long and narrowly triangular; the inner c. 3 series each with fewer phyllaries, not overlapping above, lanceolate and ± equalling the pappus in length. Florets 6–15; corollas purplish fading whitish, 9–11 mm. long, tubular in the lower half widening above into a cylindric, deeply-lobed limb; lobes erect, linear, glandular without near the apex. Achenes to c. 2.5 mm. long, turbinate, obscurely c. 10-ribbed, densely strigose-hispid between the ribs, glandular-viscid; pappus copious, many-seriate, setae to c. 11 mm. long, finely-barbellate, the outer filamentous, the innermost very narrowly scarious-winged in the lower part.
