A somewhat fleshy perennial herb of 1 or more summergreen tufts of much-divided leaves among loose rocks. Rhizomes ascending, at rock surface when young, becoming deeply buried, up to ca. 1 cm long, thick, ± fleshy, pale or reddish, with a few short deciduous hairs when young; branches often initially in clusters of up to 4 diverging from a flowering node and the nodes immediately behind, but few survive the first season; leaves usually remain crowded behind the apex, but sts eventually separate up to 2.5 cm apart. Roots numerous, very long and extensively branching, thick, up to 1.5 mm diam., fleshy. Leaves 2-pinnatifid, 2-5 × 0.3-0.8 cm; blade 1-3 cm long, narrowly obovate, coriaceous and subfleshy, grey-green, tinted with red pigment especially on primary and secondary axes, ± pilose, midrib not raised on vertical surface; pinnae 8-12 pairs, cut to rhachis, distal ones overlapping, broadly elliptic and divided, reducing to distant oblong simple proximal pinnae; secondary pinnae up to 9 per pinna, equally on proximal and distal sides, cut to midrib of pinna, with rounded apices, turned up at an angle to blade, occ. with a linear lobe on one or both sides. Peduncles easily exceeding leaves, 3-8 cm, stout, pilose, with 6-15 evenly spaced bracts; lowermost bracts scarsely smaller than leaves, reducing evenly to simple and oblong or 1— pinnatifid uppermost bracts. Subdioecious; pistillate, staminate and bisexual heads all common. Pistillate heads large, up to 2 cm diam., surface almost flat; involucre spreading and upturned at the margin; phyllaries numerous, in 2-several unequal rows, grey-green with a reddish tinge, ± pilose, not growing after anthesis; outer phyllaries exceeding florets, thick, simple and oblong or with 1-8 oblong lobes on both sides, without a scarious margin, gradually changing to thinner, simple, obovate inner phyllaries with a narrow scarious margin; florets 200-900 in numerous rows, 3.25-4.25 mm long, straight, pale yellow with brown corolla teeth, the whole floret rapidly turning brown after anthesis. corolla ca. 4 times as long as wide, with equal, obvious, diverging teeth. Staminate heads much smaller, less than 1 cm diam.: surface convex; involucre hemispherical; florets fewer, 120-450. Achenes up to 2.9 × 0.7 mm, slightly compressed, in section almost round, golden-brown, deeply wrinkled. Flowers in summer.