Perennial herb with small rootstock and numerous fleshy roots; stems erect, 25–30 cm tall, white-tomentose, ± glabrescent. Leaves cauline, sessile, linear-lanceolate, 7–15 cm long, 5–7(–25) mm wide, narrowed towards the exauriculate base, minutely serrulate with revolute margins, acute, white-tomentose with prominent midrib beneath, green and glabrous above. Capitula radiate, solitary, on slender tomentose 2–3-bracteate stalks; bracts small, linear, dentate; involucre shortly campanulate-cylindrical, thinly araneose, glabrescent, 10–14 mm long; phyllaries ± 15, subequal, 3–4-seriate, broadly lanceolate to oblong, marginally laciniate-dentate at least in upper part, acuminate, the longest 9–10(–16) mm long; receptacle scales lanceolate to narrowly triangular or oblong, with laciniate-dentate sometimes slightly expanded apices, 10–12 mm long. Ray florets 6, female-sterile; corolla 12–22 mm long, rays crimson red, broadly oblong, apically rather deeply 3-lobed, 9.5–14 mm long; disc florets ± 20; corolla like the rays in colour, glabrous, 10–11(–14) mm long, lobes narrowly oblong, 4 mm long. Achenes finely puberulous, 5–7 mm long; pappus bristles apically a little dilated, acute, 5–8 mm long.
