Perennial herb with annual shoots 12-40 cm tall, from a woody rootstock; stems with spreading crispate hairs and finer ascending hairs, glandular. Leaves elliptic or (ob)ovate, 1.5-4.5 cm long, 0.5-1.7 cm wide, base obtuse or slightly subcordate, margins irregularly dentate, apex obtuse with a mucro or acute, bearing a few scattered hairs. Capitula terminal on the branches, solitary; stalks of capitula 2-20 mm long; involucre hemispherical, 11-12 mm long, 10-14 mm in diameter at flowering time; phyllaries 3-seriate, narrowly ovate, acute, pubescent and glandular, the median narrowly purple on the margins, the inner pungent, fimbriate-pectinate on upper margins, 8-11 mm long. Florets up to 84; corolla purple, 7-10 mm long, lobes 3-3.5 mm long, stiffly hairy at the apex. Achenes 2-3 mm long, prismatic, 4-6-angled, with a few minute apical cilia around the rim; pappus white, 2.5-3 mm long.