Shrubs, 60-120 cm tall. Stems many branched; old branches erect, procumbent or ascending, bark gray-brown, branched, striate; second-year branches yellow-brown, leaf scars and axillary buds prominent; current-year branches densely leafy, purple-red, slender, young branches hairy in decurrent lines below leaves. Leaves sessile, green, oblanceolate, 1-3 × 0.2-0.7 cm, thin, glabrous except midvein hairy, more densely so adaxially, midvein abaxially prominent, venation pinnate, base attenuate, margin entire, flat, strigose-ciliate, apex obtuse or rounded to acute, mucronulate. Capitula at ends of second-year axillary branches, solitary, 2.5-3 cm in diam.; peduncles slender, 4-5.5 cm, distally hairy, subtended by small leaves; bracts scattered, linear. Involucres campanulate, 5-6 mm; phyllaries 3-seriate, unequal, distally green, linear-lanceolate, midvein distally swollen and translucent, apex acuminate; outer series of phyllaries 2-3 × ca. 0.6 mm, margin narrowly scarious, glabrous or sparsely hairy; inner 2 series of phyllaries subequal, 4-5.5 × ca. 1 mm, margin scarious, erose, ciliate, sometimes tips purplish, midvein translucent, dark bordered. Ray florets 25-30, green-purple, lamina 9-10 × 2-2.5 mm, glabrous, eglandular; disk florets yellow, ca. 5 mm, limb narrowly campanulate, ca. 3.5 mm, proximally sparsely hairy, eglandular, lobes spreading to recurved, triangular, ca. 1 mm. Achenes obovoid, 2-3 mm, densely strigillose, 2-4-veined, veins concolorous. Pappus 3-seriate, white; outer bristles slender, 0.5-1 mm; inner bristles unequal, 3.5-4 mm, acute or innermost ± clavate. Fl. and fr. Apr-Jul.

● Dry slopes on hills, rocky walls; 1300-2800 m. W Sichuan (Maowen).