Perennials 15-45 cm; stout, branched caudices. Stems 5-30+, horizontal or hanging from cliff sides, thinly appressed gray-tomentose and villous with septate trichomes; branches 0-few. distal, ascending. Leaves: blades oblong-elliptic to oblanceolate, 5-30 × 1-5 cm, shallowly to deeply pinnatifid, lobes spreading, triangular, coarsely dentate or lobed, obtuse to acute, main spines slender, 4-10 mm, abaxial faces green or gray-tomentose, villous with septate trichomes along midveins, ± glabrate, adaxial green and glabrous or thinly tomentose, ± glabrate; basal often present at flowering, spiny winged-petiolate; principal cauline sessile, gradually reduced distally; distal oblong, bases ± clasping, usually less deeply lobed and often spinier than proximal. Heads 1-6+, borne singly or in condensed corymbiform arrays. Peduncles 0-1 cm. Involucres cylindric to narrowly campanulate, 3.5-4.5 × 1.5-2 cm, loosely arachnoid, glabrate, finely short-ciliate. Phyllaries in 5-6 series, imbricate, linear-lanceolate (outer) to linear (inner), entire, abaxial faces without glutinous ridge, apices red to reddish purple, stiffly ascending, long-acuminate, spines straight, 1-10 mm, ± flattened; apices of inner stramineous to red, straight or flexuous. Corollas red to reddish purple, 26-27 mm, tubes 3.5-5 mm, throats 7.5-9.5 mm, lobes 12-14 mm; style tips ca. 3 mm. Cypselae stramineous, 5-6 mm, apical collars not differentiated; pappi 20-25 mm.

Flowering summer (Jun-Sep). Crevices in limestone or basaltic cliffs; 900-1500 m; Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila).

Cirsium turneri is known from the mountains of the Big Bend area of trans-Pecos Texas and adjacent areas of northern Mexico.