Annual to perennial, lactiferous, erect herbs, branched in lower half or stem simple, glabrous to hispid. Leaves sessile, basally attenuate, entire or lobed, basal in a rosette, cauline alternate. Capitula sessile or on long peduncles, solitary or clustered in leaf axils. Involucre cylindrical, indurated in fruit. Phyllaries multiseriate, outer 5, ovate to lanceolate, fleshy below, apically reflexed, acute to acuminate, inner phyllaries (5-) 8, akin to outer but narrower with basal part mostly appressed against outer cypselas, entire. Receptacle flat, with or without paleae. Florets usually blue, rarely white, 5-20, basal tubular part hairy all around, ligules hairy at base, apically with unequal, 5 lobes. Stamen filaments glabrous. Style slender, with erecto-patent sweeping hairs in upper part and outside of internally papillate stigmatic lobes. Cypselas glabrous, sturdy, obovoid to ± cylindrical, faintly ribbed, truncate at the apices, outer ones dorsally compressed and adnate to inner phyllaries. Pappus scales in (1-) 2-3 series, erect to erecto-patent, irregularly shaped, rounded to acute, all equal or larger and apically long-tipped on inner cypselas.
A small genus comprising of c. 7 species, distributed in Europe, North Africa, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, West and South-West and Central Asia and China. Represented in Pakistan by 4 species.