Herbs to 1 m tall, perennial. Stems erect, branched above, unwinged, felted below capitula. Leaves concolorous, green, surface smooth, with sparse crispate hairs along veins or glabrous. Upper cauline leaves with winged petiole 2-2.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic to rarely ovate, 10-15 × 6-7 cm, undivided, margin serrulate, teeth with lateral spinules less than 1 mm, apex acute and with a 1-1.5 mm spinule. Uppermost leaves and bracts similar but narrower. Capitula few to many, corymbose, erect, not surrounded with pectinately spiny pungent bracts. Involucre ovoid, 2-2.5 cm in diam., glabrous. Phyllaries imbricate, in ca. 8 rows; outer and middle phyllaries triangular-lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or linear-elliptic, 5-16 × 2-3 mm, apex tipped with a 0.5-1 mm spinule; inner phyllaries linear to broadly linear, ca. 18 × 1-2 mm, apically expanded into a scarious red appendage. Florets bisexual. Corolla white, ca. 2.3 cm, tube ca. 1.1 cm. Achene ca. 4.5 mm. Pappus bristles white, ca. 2 cm. Fl. and fr. Oct.

● Forests; ca. 1300 m. Zhejiang (Tianmu Shan).