Erect biennial to 2.5 m high; stems winged and ribbed, yellowish-brown, woolly; wings to 20 mm wide, with spines to 12 mm long on the lobes. Leaves sessile, oblong-lanceolate in outline to 50 cm long, 20 cm wide, pinnatifid with 6–8 pairs of remote triangular lobes, each tipped by a yellowish spine, both surfaces grey-green and woolly. Capitula shortly pedunculate, solitary or in clusters of 2 or 3 at the ends of stems, conical-ovoid, 3.5–5 cm diam.; involucral bracts lanceolate, to 4 cm long, grey-green near base becoming purple towards apex, all erect, tapered into a yellow spinose apical appendage, outer involucral bracts cobwebbed. Florets longer than involucre, purple or pink. Cypselas 4–5 mm long, 4-ribbed, wrinkled, grey; pappus 8–10 mm long, white, silky. Flowers summer.
VVP, Gold. . Known in Australia from two collections in central Victoria.
The Victorian plants are assigned to subsp. castellanum on the basis of the woolly tomentum on all vegetative parts.
