Annual, biennial or  to perennial, rather ± fleshy, coarse, erect herbs with sparse branches from below. Leaves alternate, entire to pinnately dissected,  mostly auriculate-clasping at the base,  often prickly margined. Capitula numerous-flowered, on stipitate glandulose, basally more or less white tomentose peduncles,  mostly few  to numerous in corymbose or panicle-like synflorescence. Involucre campanulate to broadly campanulate, often beset with glandular hairs and whitish tomentose at the base.  Phyllaries green, glandular hairy to glabrous, multiseriate, imbricate, with age hardened at the base. Receptacle flat, naked. Florets with narrow, yellow ligules. Cypselas narrowly ovoid to ellipsoid, strongly compressed, usually narrowed at both the ends, bearing  4-5 principal ribs, each associated by 2 secondary ribs, apically truncate,  often  tuberculate to rugose or not. Pappus dimorphic, white, bristles smooth to scabrid, never plumose, outer hairs soft, cottony, copious,  caducous or persistent, much longer than the cypselas, and inner bristles short, thicker, more or less deciduous.

A  paraphyletic genus consisting of c. 90 species (Mabberley, 2008),  mainly occurring in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australasia , a few widely distributed all over the globe being adventive weeds.  Represented in Pakistan by 5 species.