Neocodon Kolakovsky & Serdyukova.

Herbs, perennial, with long horizontal rhizomes or with short caudexes and thickened ± fleshy roots; less often annual. Basal leaves sometimes rosulate; cauline leaves all alternate. Flowers solitary and terminal, or in cymes; cymes paniculate or capitellate, later subtended by an involucre. Calyx adnate to ovary; lobes 5, sometimes with an appendage between lobes. Corolla campanulate, tubular-campanulate, or funnelform, sometimes subrotate, 5-lobed. Filaments dilated; anthers coherent or rarely connate. Disk absent. Ovary inferior, 3-5-locular. Capsules dehiscent by lateral, upper or lower pores, crowned by persistent calyx lobes. Seeds numerous, ellipsoid, smooth.

About 420 species: throughout the Arctic and N temperate regions, most abundant from the Mediterranean to the Caucasus; 22 species (11 endemic) in China.

(Authors: Hong Deyuan (洪德元); Thomas G. Lammers, Laura L. Klein)