Perennial, rarely annual herbs, with reddish-tipped roots. Leaves alternate, entire, serrate, pinnatifid. Capitula radiate or discoid, pedunculate, solitary or 2-6 in lax corymbs, terminal. Involucre saucer-shaped, 3-4-seriate, phyllaries herbaceous, outer narrowly and inner broadly membranous-margined. Receptacle convex, distinctly alveolate, without paleae. Ray-florets, when present, mostly uniseriate, female, fertile, with white, pink or occasionally yellow ligules. Disc-florets and marginal florets, when-ray-florets absent, bisexual, with 5-lobed, basally spongy and swollen in fruit, yellow, corolla tube. Anthers on apically thickened filaments, unappendaged at the base, with lanceolate-ovoid apical appendages. Cypselas heteromorphic, ± terete, prominently 8-10-ribbed, ribs with mucilaginous cells, vellecular secretory canals present between the ribs. Pappus a corona or an adaxial auricle, occasionally rudimentary or absent.