Bright green perennial undershrubs, laxly hairy, papillose. Stem erect, glandular, branched, sparsely hairy above, sometimes pilose below, 20-30 cm. Leaves narrowly lanceolate, upper surface greenish, less hairy or almost glabrous, lower surface hairy, papillose or glandular brownish green, entire, 10-30 x 1-4 mm, apex cuspidate or apiculate, cartilaginous in upper leaves, attenuate, margins flat, sessile, sometime shortly stipitate. Capitula in loose corymbs, not dense, 3-6 x 3-4 mm shiny, campanulate, peduncle 2-4 mm long, woolly, glandular; phyllaries 5-6-seriate, hairy, papillose, outer lanceolate, lower part brownish green sometime reddish tinged, acute, shorter, middle and inner narrowly lanceolate, apiculate, longer than outer, lower part brownish. Bisexual (functionally male) florets 25 in bisexual homogamous capitula. Female florets 24 in predominantly female capitula with 2-3 bisexual florets (functionally male). Corolla of female florets 2.5-3 mm, light brown, filiform; that of bisexual florets 1.8-2.5 mm, dark brown, tubular with glandular lobes. Cypselas of female florets 1-1.2 mm long, papillose, oblong; pappus 2.8-3.2 mm; pappus of bisexual cypselas 2-2.5 mm long.

Fl.Per.: July-September.

Type: Pamir Alaj, Schugnan Prope Nischus ad fl. pjandsh in decliviis lapidosis 9. VII. 1897, Korshinsky (LE).

A plant of higher altitudes, from 2500 m and above, grows on stony slopes, rock crevices and glacier moraines. Not yet reported from Afghanistan, likely to occur there also; Distribution: Tajikistan (Pamir Alai, Shugnan) and Pakistan.