Cirsium nidulans Regel, Bull. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou 40(3-4): 160. 1867; Arctium eriophorum (Regel & Schmalhausen) Kuntze; Carduus horridus (Ruprecht) B. Fedtschenko (1912), not Adams (1805); Cousinia eriophora Regel & Schmalhausen; Jurinea horrida Ruprecht; Schmalhausenia eriophora (Regel & Schmalhausen) C. Winkler.

Herbs to 25 cm tall. Stem solitary, erect, thick, hollow, unbranched, densely and fluffily cobwebby-felted, base covered with petiole remains. Leaves concolorous, grayish white or grayish green, densely and fluffily villous. Basal leaves petiolate; leaf blade elliptic-oblanceolate, 35-40 × 10-14 cm; ultimate lobes lanceolate, apex narrowed into a long spine. Cauline leaves similar but sessile, smaller, sometimes narrowly elliptic. Capitula 5-10. Involucre 2.2-4 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 3 or 4 rows, narrowly lanceolate, apex narrowed into a long subulate spine; outer and middle phyllaries abaxially brown villous. Corolla purple. Achene ca. 5 mm, wrinkled, ribs prolonged into a small tooth. Pappus bristles brown, to 1.3 cm, unequal. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

Meadows; ca. 3600 m. NW Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].