Herbs, annual or perennial, acaulescent and rosulate, or, exceptionally, caulescent with thick and hollow, densely leafy stem, sometimes from thin, vertical, subterranean shoot with scaly leaves. Rosette shoot inflated at apex to a flat, convex, hollow receptacle, carrying usually some to numerous, densely crowded sessile or subsessile capitula, often with a reduced, linear subtending leaf. Capitula with 3 or 5 florets. Involucre narrowly cylindric. Phyllaries in 1 row; outer phyllaries absent; inner phyllaries 3 or 5, ± lanceolate, subequal in length, connate in basal part, hardened at maturity. Receptacle naked. Florets yellow or pale to medium purplish. Achene obconical, compressed, with 5 ribs, apex truncate. Pappus of grayish white, with scabrid bristles, usually caducous.

The species formerly treated as Syncalathium souliei (incl. S. orbiculariforme) is not a congener and is not even part of subtribe Crepidinae; it is a member of subtribe Lactucinae and included in the genus Melanoseris (see M. souliei, p. 225).

● Five species: China.

(Authors: Shi Zhu (石铸 Shih Chu); Norbert Kilian)