A small, 10 – 20  cm tall, perennial herb with a short woody rootstock, basal leaf rosette and divaricately branched, leafless, ascending floral shoots. Leaves narrowly spathulate, 2 – 7 x 0.5 – 2 cm, deeply pinnatifid to bipinnatifid, with narrow, cartilageneously toothed, acute lobes; cauline leaves much smaller in size, ovate-acute or acuminate. Capitula on 5 – 30 mm long peduncles,  25-30-flowered, bracteolate. Involucre greyish-green, slender, 8-10 mm long, accrescent and enlarged  up to 14 mm at fruiting, basally hardened and swollen.  Phyllaries 3-seriate, membranous-margined,  outer ones 5-7, ovate, 1.5 – 2 mm long, acute; median lanceolate, innermost   7-9, linear-lanceolate, (8-) 10 – 14  mm long, stellately spreading at fruiting with their midrib hardened.  Receptacle at  fruiting  c. 2 mm across. Florets with 4 – 5 mm long tube and 7.5 – 8 mm long  yellow ligules. Anther tube excluding appendages 2.4 – 2.6 mm long. Style branches beset with yellow sweeping hairs, 2.2 – 2.4 mm long. Cypselas brown, heteromorphic, 6.1 – 6.8  mm long, inner ones ± columnar, with 4 main ribs and 8 secondary ribs, slightly papillose, wrinkled; outer cypsela 5-angled, shorter than inner ones, with 5 main ribs and 10 secondary ribs, papillose. Pappus 7 – 8  mm long, dimorphic, outer bristle shorter than the inner, persistent or late deciduous.