Herbs 10-70 cm tall, perennial. Caudex simple or few branched. Stems usually solitary, 2-7 mm in diam., erect, simple. Rosette and lower stem leaves petiolate; leaf blade narrowly ovate, elliptic, or linear, 12-28 × 1-4.2 cm, both surfaces green, abaxially glandular hairy, adaxially glabrescent, margin dentate, apex acute. Middle and upper stem leaves sessile, 5-16 × 1.8-3.2 cm, both surfaces green to purple. Uppermost stem leaves ovate and boat-shaped, 4-6 × 1-2 cm, membranous, half-enclosing synflorescence, both surfaces red to purple, margin entire or serrulate, apex acuminate. Capitula (1 or)2-9(-13), in a corymbiform synflorescence or rarely solitary, pedunculate. Involucre globose, 1.5-2 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 3 or 4 rows, blackish purple or yellowish with dark margin, villous to glabrescent, apex acuminate; outer phyllaries triangular-ovate, 7.5-10 × 3-4.5 mm; middle phyllaries narrowly triangular-ovate, 9-11 × 2-3 mm; inner phyllaries linear, 12-14 × 1.5-2 mm. Receptacle bristles 3-5(-7.5) mm. Corolla purple, 1.3-1.5 cm, tube 7-8.5 mm, limb 6-7 mm, lobes 3.6-4.5 mm. Achene straw-colored to black, cylindric to obovoid, 3-5.5 mm, indistinctly 5-ribbed. Pappus yellowish; outer bristles 1-7.5 mm; inner bristles 9-10 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct. 2n = 32*.

● Alpine grasslands, thickets, meadows; 3000-4800 m. W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.