Variety originating from the western Himalayas, Pakistan, and northwestern India.
Distinguished from the European type by smaller and denser rosettes, an even tighter felting giving it a very pronounced gray-silver appearance, and flowers generally of a deeper pink.
Some botanists associate it with A. jacquemontii , of which it would represent an intermediate form, reflecting the complex interweaving of this group at the junction of the European and Himalayan floras.