General:
Perennial herb from a rhizome or short, stout stem-base; stems erect, simple, glabrous to moderately long-hairy below, usually densely long-hairy beneath the heads, 5-70 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves linear-lanceolate to linear-oblanceolate or broadly oblanceolate to spoon-shaped, tapering to the stalk, glabrous, often long-fringed with small hairs on the margins or sometimes sparsely long-hairy on the main veins or over the entire surfaces, 1-20 cm long, 0.2-4.5 cm wide; lower stem leaves similar; middle and upper stem leaves linear to broadly egg-shaped, occasionally more or less clasping, up to 8 cm long and 3 cm wide, sometimes lacking in smaller forms.

Flowers:
Heads with ray and disk flowers, mostly solitary, sometimes as many as 8, the disks 10-25 mm wide; involucres 7.5-11 mm tall; involucral bracts glandular and rarely with a few hairs (ssp. callianthemus) or long-hairy or sometimes sticky and fringed with small hairs (ssp. peregrinus), linear, tapering to a slender tip, loose, mostly rather leafy and about equal; ray flowers 30-80, reddish- to dark-purplish, lavender or sometimes white, 8-25 mm long, 2-4 mm wide; disk flowers 4-6 mm long.

Fruits:
Achenes asymmetrically 4- to 7-nerved, sparsely hairy; pappus single and of 20-30 bristles or double and the outer of a few scales.

Notes:
Cronquist (1947) has provided the only comprehensive treatment for this extremely variable complex. Unfortunately, he was unable to observe all seven varieties he recognized in the field. In the Pacific Northwest these varieties, which were based mainly on plant size and leaf shape, often grow together and show a continuous variation reflecting the harshness of the micro-habitats. Even the two subspecies recognized here intergrade frequently where the ranges overlap in BC and WA. The two subspecies may be separated as follows:

1. Involucral bracts long-hairy or sometimes sticky and fringed with small hairs margins............................ ssp. peregrinus

1. Involucral bracts glandular, rarely with a few long hairs.............................. ssp. callianthemus (Greene) Cronq.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia