Perennials 2-15(-25) cm; rhizomatous, fibrous-rooted, rhizomes or caudices simple or branched. Stems erect, villoso-hirsute (hair cross walls dark to blackish purple), minutely glandular (conspicuously so proximal to heads). Leaves mostly basal (persistent) and cauline; blades spatulate to spatulate-oblanceolate, 10-50(-80) × 2-7(-11) mm, cauline abruptly reduced distally, margins entire, faces sparsely to moderately villous (hair cross walls dark reddish or purple), sometimes sparsely minutely glandular. Heads 1. Involucres 6-9 × 10-15(-20) mm. Phyllaries in (1-)2(-3) series (usually dark purple), strigoso-hirsute (hair cross walls dark reddish to blackish purple), minutely glandular. Ray florets 50-100(-150); corollas bluish purple to lavender, rarely whitish, 4-6 mm, laminae erect (filiform, 0.3-1 mm wide), not coiling or reflexing. Disc corollas 2.4-3 mm. Cypselae 2.2-2.5 mm, plump, 2-nerved, faces finely strigoso-hirsute; pappi: outer of setae (inconspicuous), inner of 20-30 bristles. 2n = 36.

Flowering Jun-Aug(-Sep). Arctic and alpine tundra, snowbed slopes, pond and stream margins, boulder ridges in streambeds, heaths, ledges, dry gravelly slopes; (Greenland, 0-)1000-2400(-4000, Colorado, Utah) m; Greenland; Alta., B.C., Man., Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Colo., Idaho, Mont., Utah, Wyo.; n Eurasia.