Leaves alternate, entire, deciduous but long persistent after withering, crowded towards the ends of the branches, 6–10 cm x 6–15 mm, lanceolate, coriaceous, green and glabrescent above, densely white tomentose beneath, subsessile and with a few ciliate spines at the base.

Capitulum 15–30 mm in diameter (excluding outer bracts), discoid to hemispherical on short peduncles solitary or in corymbs.

Outer involucral bracts large, leafy of varying lengths, lanceolate to ovate, the inner scarious, shiny, stiff and spreading when dry.

Inner involucral bracts shorter than the outer, scarious, recurved, spiny at the apex, blackish or purplish brown .

Achenes oblong 3 mm, pappus of 1 row of plumose, dense, appressed, caduceus, shiny brown hairs 2- to 3- branched and united at the base into clusters.