Herbs, perennial, 4-6 cm tall, caespitose; rhizomes procumbent or ascending, branched, collar clad with marcescent leaf remains. Stems erect, slender, densely white hirsute or villous. Leaves: basal leaves narrowly winged petiolate, base attenuate, apex rounded; middle cauline leaves few, spreading or erect, oblong-lanceolate, 1.7-2.2 × 0.4-0.6 cm, base subclasping, apex somewhat acute; upper leaves linear-lanceolate, acuminate, gray-white thickly tomentose, triplinerved, veins abaxially somewhat prominent. Capitula solitary, ca. 2.5 cm in diam. Involucre hemispheric, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., thickly gray-white tomentose; phyllaries 2- or 3-seriate, linear-lanceolate, ca. 8 mm, herbaceous, acuminate; outer phyllaries ca. 1 mm wide; inner phyllaries narrower to ca. 0.5 mm wide, with narrowly membranous margin, hairy above. Ray florets ca. 50, lamina (not open) linear-lanceolate, ca. 10 × 1 mm; disk florets yellow, ca. 6 mm, tube ca. 1 mm, puberulent, lobes glandular. Ovary oblong, sparsely pubescent or subglabrous. Pappus 2-seriate, white; outer bristles very short, paleaceous; inner bristles ca. as long as disk corolla.

Aster hololachnus is closely related to A. flaccidus, from which it differs mainly in having densely gray-white tomentose leaves and narrower phyllaries and ray florets.

● Glacier areas; 5300-5400 m. S Xizang (Tingri).