Plant 40–90 cm, perennial. Taproot long, thickened, yellowish-brown, fusiform, little-branched. Stem solitary, much-branched throughout, branches long, slender, remote, base clothed with fibrous remnant sheaths. Basal leaves numerous, rosette-caespitose; blades oblanceolate, 5–12 × 0.2–0.4 cm, 3–5-nerved, tapering into petiole, base dilated, clasping. Lower leaves linear. Middle and upper leaves 1–8, subulate to squamose, 0.5–1 mm. Umbels numerous, remote, very small, ca. 4 mm across; bracts 2–3, subulate or squamose, 0.3–1.5 × 0.1–0.3 mm, unequal, rigid; rays (1–)2–3, 2–35 mm, filiform, very unequal; bracteoles 5–6(–7), obovate or elliptic, 0.6–1 × 0.3–0.5 mm, thick, shorter than flowers; umbellules 2–3 mm across, 1–4-flowered; pedicels 3–6 mm in flower, elongating in fruit. Petals yellow, midvein dark yellow. Stylopodium low-conic, yellow. Fruit ovoid, brown, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm; ribs prominent; vittae 2–3 in each furrow, 3–4 on commissure. Fl. and fr. Aug–Oct.

This species is used as a regional substitute for the Chinese medicine “chai hu.”

Mountain slopes, grasslands; 1400–1800 m. NW Sichuan (upward from Min Jiang drainage basin).