Plants 2-8(-12) cm. Leaves mostly basal (in persistent rosettes); blades 1-nerved, linear to linear-oblanceolate, 5-25 × 3 mm, cauline similar, faces concolor, gray-green, thinly woolly. Heads (usually 1-7) in subcapitate to loose, spiciform arrays. Involucres campanulate, 5-6 mm. Phyllaries light green to tan, oblong to lanceolate, outer obtuse, inner mostly acute, margins and tips dark brown. Cypselae obovoid, strigose; pappus bristles distinct, falling separately. 2n = 28.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Granite outcrops, gravelly slopes, other alpine sites; 200-1300 m; Greenland; Nfld. and Labr., Que.; Maine, N.H., Vt.; Europe; Asia (Caucasus, Iran).

Dwarf, thinly woolly perennial 2-10 cm; basal lvs tufted, linear or linear-oblanceolate, acute, to 2.5 cm נ3 mm; cauline lvs similar, few; heads 1-8 in a terminal, spiciform or subcapitate infl; invol 5-6 mm, scarcely woolly, its bracts light greenish or tan, with dark brown margins and tips, imbricate, the outer obtuse, the inner mostly acute; pappus-bristles separate; achenes sparsely strigose; 2n=28. Alpine places; circumboreal, s. to n. Me. and n. N.H. July-Sept.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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