Subshrubs or perennial herbs, 20-40 cm tall. Rootstock 4-10 mm in diam. Caudex branched, with smooth scarious leaf sheath residues. Stems some to many, grayish green, slender, erect, repeatedly divaricately and intricately branched from base, pubescent or glabrous, basally woody; branches slender, ascending-erect. Basal leaves few, distant, linear, early deciduous. Stem leaves linear to filiform, 2-10 × 1-3 mm, apex usually hooked; upper stem leaves bractlike, inconspicuous. Capitula many, terminal, with 4 or 5 (to 12-15 in var. sublilacina) florets. Involucre narrowly cylindric, ca. 1 cm at anthesis, 1.5-1.7 × 0.3-0.4 cm in fruit. Phyllaries puberulent, pubescent, or sparsely pubescent in fruit; outer phyllaries few, ovate to lanceolate, longest ca. 1/2 as long as inner phyllaries; inner phyllaries usually ca. 4. Florets yellow (or pale purple in var. sublilacina). Achene pale yellow to yellowish brown, cylindric, 7-9 mm, with smooth ribs, glabrous or apically villous. Pappus straw-colored to brownish, ca. 1.5 cm. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.

Dry riverbeds, lowland sand dunes, gullies, valleys, hills, slopes, plains at base of mountains; 500-2000 m. Gansu, Hebei, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi [Mongolia].