The branches are gray-green, dark brown or red-brown and show indistinct stripes.

The bracts are small, hairy white, light at the base, and dark brown to black and long bearded towards the tip.

There it grows in mountain forests and alpine shrub regions at heights of up to 1900 meters[3] on fresh to moist, acidic to neutral, sandy-humic, gravelly or rocky, shallow soils in sunny to sunny, summer-cool and winter-cold locations.

[5] In the Allgäu Alps, it rises in Vorarlberg near Pellingerköpfleand between Ifenhütte and Hahnenköpfle at Hohen Ifen up to 2000 meters above sea level.

The first description was in 1789 by Dominique Villars in his work Histoire Des Plantes de Dauphine.