a perennial herb; rootstock a tuber with an elongated neck, producing annual herbaceous stems 1–4 in. high, branching from the base, puberulous or glabrous; leaves opposite at the flowering nodes and forkings of the stem, alternate elsewhere, sessile, thinly coriaceous or perhaps slightly fleshy, 3/4–2 1/2 in. long, 1/2–2 1/2 lin. broad, linear, acute, usually slightly curved, often longitudinally folded, glabrous on both sides, sometimes ciliate on the narrow cartilaginous margins; lowest leaves and sometimes those under the involucres (bracts) much smaller, lanceolate, linear-lanceolate or scale-like; stipules none; involucres solitary in the forkings of the stems or sometimes 3–5 in small terminal cymes, shortly pedunculate, 4–5 lin. in diam., cup-shaped, glabrous or minutely puberulous outside, with 5 glands and 5 transversely rectangular or subquadrate fringed lobes; glands 1 1/3–1 2/3 lin. long, 1 1/2–2 lin. broad, palmate or somewhat fan-shaped, deeply divided into 3–7 (or more?) linear or filiform segments 3/4–1 1/2 lin. long, once or twice forked at the apex, flat or channelled but not corrugated on their upper surface, with the undivided basal part concave or 2-lipped from the inner margin being inflexed; capsule 5–5 1/2 lin. in diam., glabrous, exserted on an erect pedicel equalling or exceeding the involucre; styles united into a column 1–1 3/4 lin. long, with revolute arms 3/4–1 1/4 lin. long, minutely 2-lobed at the tips; seeds 1 1/2–2 lin. in diam., globose, acutely pointed at one end, thinly and minutely subrugulose with what appear to be irregular agglutinated masses of minute hairs. null
