Heads often densely crowded at stem tips. Peduncles 0-5(-10) cm. Involucres 2-4 × 2.5-4 cm, usually densely arachnoid. Phyllary apices widely spreading, long-acicular, spines 5-15 mm. Corollas (15-)18-22 mm, tubes 7-11 mm, throats (4-)5-8.5 mm, lobes (2-)4.5-7 mm; style tips 4-5 mm. Cypselae dark brown, 5-6.5 mm; pappi 20-25 mm. 2n = 34 (as C. edule).

Flowering Jun-Oct. Damp soil, mostly montane meadows, forests, alpine; 0-1900 m; B.C.; Alaska, Oreg., Wash.

Variety macounii ranges from the coastal mountains of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia to Vancouver Island, the Olympic Peninsula, and northern Cascades of Washington, and the mountains of northwestern Oregon.