Tragopyrum pungens Marschall von Bieberstein, Fl. Taur.-Caucas. 3: 285. 1819–1820.

Shrubs ca. 1.5 m tall. Stem straight, stout, with gray-brown bark; epidermis splitting fibrously; woody branches flexuous, apex without leaves and acuminate into spines; herbaceous branchlets of current year short, stout, soon becoming lignified, white, glabrous, apex acuminate, with leaves or flowers. Leaves blue-green or gray-green, broadly elliptic or obovate, 10-20 × 5-10 cm, both surfaces glabrous, reticulate veins prominent abaxially, base rounded or broadly cuneate, narrowing into a short petiole, margin entire or slightly undulate with teeth, apex rounded, with a short point or emarginate; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, membranous, faintly veined, cleft into 2 teeth at upper part. Pedicel long, jointed at or above middle. Flowers in short racemes (ca. 1.5 cm) on lateral herbaceous branchlets of current year. Tepals 5, pink or green-white; outer tepals 2, reflexed in fruit, ovate or broadly elliptic, ca. 3 mm; inner tepals 3, orbicular-cordate in fruit, 5-6 × 6-7 mm, with prominent reticulate veins, margin undulate. Achenes dark brown, shiny, ovoid, ca. 2.5 mm, trigonous, smooth. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

Stony slopes, gravelly deserts; 500-3400 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Xinjiang [?India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia].