Herbs, perennial, 30-60 cm tall. Stems 3-5-fascicled, erect or ascending, branched in upper part, shallowly canaliculate, red-brown in lower part, yellow villous-canescent or glabrescent, loosely leafy. Leaves abaxially pale green, sparsely hairy on veins, minutely stipitate glandular, adaxially scabrous, margin ± revolute, entire or remotely serrulate (teeth mucronulate), scabrous, midvein prominent, 3-veined, veins subparallel, reticulate veins lax, apex acute; lower leaves withered by anthesis, long petiolate, narrowly lanceolate; middle leaves shortly petiolate, linear-lanceolate, 5-9 × 0.4-0.7 cm, base attenuate, apex long acuminate, sometimes falcate; upper leaves reduced, linear to subulate. Capitula in corymbiform synflorescences, 2-2.5 cm in diam. Involucres campanulate, ca. 5 × 8-10 mm; phyllaries 3- or 4-seriate, unequal, margin scarious, erose, ciliate, midvein green, apex obtuse; outer phyllaries linear-oblong, 2-2.5 × ca. 0.7 mm, apically leaflike; inner phyllaries ca. 4.5 × 1 mm, apically purple-red. Ray florets to 20, blue-purple, tube ca. 2.5 mm, lamina oblong, ca. 9 × 2.5 mm; disk florets ca. 4 mm (immature). Achenes (immature) black, obovoid, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm, strigillose, 2- or 3-ribbed. Pappus (immature) white, 3.5-4 mm. Fl. Jul.

● Slopes, among shrubs, gullies; 1000-1300 m. S Gansu (Huixian, Qingyan).