Authors: Poepp.  

Botanical Description

ex Less. Twiggy, loosely much-branched hairless shrublet with shallowly zig-zagging main stems 15-100cm long. Leaves widely spaced and spreading, rigid, entire, linear, 2-3.5cm by 1mm with a spiny mucro much like a pine needle. Flowerheads with an involucre 15 by 8-10mm having bracts in six or seven series, the basal and middle ones spiny tipped, ray florets about eight, 1.5-2cm by 3-4mm, white above, often pale pink beneath, late summer in the wild. Chile and Argentina, the central cordilleras in montane scrub and dry alpine steppe at 1500-3000m.