Taprooted perennial with a slender-branched caudex. Stems ascending to erect, 10–40 cm. Herbage short-hirsute, often minutely glandular. Leaves basal and cauline; blades linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, entire, 6–16 cm long, the largest with 3 veins, becoming linear above. Heads radiate, 1 to 10. Involucres hemispheric, 4–7 mm high; phyllaries in 2 to 3 series, short-hirsute, minutely glandular. Rays 35 to 65, blue; ligules 6–11 mm long. Disk corollas 3–5 mm long. Achenes 2–3 mm long (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus bifarius,
Bombus centralis,
Bombus fervidus,
Bombus flavifrons,
Bombus huntii,
Bombus melanopygus,
Bombus mixtus,
Bombus rufocinctus,
Bombus occidentalis, and
Bombus insularis (Thorp et al. 1983, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012).