[1] It is small to average height, with a rosette of greyish pinnately segmented leaves, and little branching solid stems carrying one to three heads of orange or yolk yellow ray-flowers, with a purple anther tube, and scaly pappus.

In 1838 Augustin Pyramus de Candolle moved the species to Cassini's genus, recombining it with Linnaeus' epithet to Hymenonema graecum.

Also in 1838, Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent and Louis Athanase Chaubard in their Nouvelle Flore du Péloponèse et des Cyclades described Catananche graeca, but now based on a specimen from the Peloponnesos.

Pierre Edmond Boissier and Theodor von Heldreich realised that the plants described by Linnaeus and by Bory and Chaubard, belonged to related but different species, therefore the last assigned name was no longer available, and hence invalid.

[5][6] Hymenonema laconicum is limited to the central and south-eastern Peloponnesos, in particular the Mainalo, Parnon and Taygetos mountains and the surrounding lowlands.