Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, sometimes woody at base. Leaves alternate, usually auriculate-clasping, often with callose hairs or spinose on margins, entire or dentate or pinnatifid. Heads homogamous, many flowered, becoming swollen at base. Involucre ovoid or campanulate; bracts imbricate, in several series, herbaceous or membranaceous. Receptacle flat, glabrous. Corolla ligulate, yellow, truncate, 5-lobed. Anthers sagittate at base. Style branches slender. Achenes slightly flattened, 10-20-ribbed, slightly narrowed at both ends, beakless, oval to linear, glabrous. Pappus bristles copious, in many series, slender, snow white, connate at base into a ring, usually deciduous as a whole.
About 45 species, natives of the Old World, a few species widely distributed and naturalized; three species in Taiwan.
