Plants erect, subacaulescent to caulescent, 5-55 cm. Stems usually simple, leafy, glabrous to villous or tomentose with septate trichomes, sometimes thinly arachnoid tomentose. Leaves: blades oblong to oblanceolate or elliptic, pinnately lobed or often unlobed, longer spines less than 1 cm, abaxial faces green and ± glabrous to white-tomentose, adaxial faces green, glabrous or villous with septate trichomes. Heads 1-10+, sessile or short-pedunculate, crowded at stem tips, usually subtended and ± overtopped by distal leaves. Involucres 2-3 cm. Phyllaries: outer and mid lanceolate to ovate, spines slender, 2-4 mm; apices of inner acuminate and entire or abruptly expanded into scarious, erose-toothed appendages. Corollas rose-purple, 23-31 mm, tubes 11-16 mm, throats 4.5-8.5 mm, lobes 5.5-8.5 mm; style tips 3.5-4.5 mm. Cypselae 4-6 mm; pappi 22-25 mm.

Flowering spring-summer (May-Aug). Meadows, pastures, springs; 1250-2300 m; Idaho, Nev., Oreg.

Variety toiyabense occurs in the western Basin and Range province from northern Nevada to southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho.