Plants up to 75 cm tall, bluish. In tall plants the lower stem unbranched. Radical leaves deciduous, unidivided, oblong to orbicular; margin crenate; basal leaves long petioled, divided; cauline leaves sessile to short petioled, divid¬ed; segments lanceolate. Umbels numerous with subglobose heads. Involucre of 5-6 bracts, sometimes alternating with spines; margin entire or with a pair of spines. Bractlets linear, pungent, longer than the flowers. Flowers sessile in the axils of bractlets. Calyx tube scaly; scales linear to lanceolate, white. Sepals 5, lanceolate, mucronate, 3 mm long with the mucro; mucro as long as the sepal. Stylopodium lacking; styles longer than the sepals. Fruit ridges not prominent; vittae inconspicuous. Inner seed face slightly concave.

Type locality: Caucasus in Georgia, USSR.

Distribution: S. Russia, Turkey, Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, W. Pakistan, Tibet.

A fairly common plant in the foot-hills. Young deciduous leaves appear in September and October while the flowers bloom next year in the early summer months.