Stems with 80-200 prickles per cm². Leaf blades: surfaces prickly on veins and prickly-hispid, often densely so, between veins. Capsules densely short-prickly as well as long-prickly, longest prickles 10-15 mm. 2 n = ca. 112.

Flowering spring-summer; fruiting summer-fall. Prairies and foothills; 1000-1800 m; Colo., Kans., N.Mex., Okla.