Plants up to 50 cm tall, bluish, branched. Leaves pinnately divided; margin spiny; cauline leaves sessile. Involucre of 6-8 bracts alternating with spines; bracts margins entire to spiny; bracts 2-3 times longer the flowers. Bractlets c. 1 cm long, longer than the flowers. Calyx tube scaly; scales lanceolate to ovate, white. Sepals lanceolate to ovate, mucronate; mucro as long as the sepal. Styles long. Fruit scaly; vittae obsolete.

Type locality: Lebanon.

Distribution: Turkey, Caucasus, Iraq, Lebanon to Iran, W. Pakistan.

This species is hard to distinguish from E. coeruleum.