Annual to perennial, scapigerous, lactiferous, glabrous or hairy herb. Leaves in rosettes, usually pinnatifid with runcinate lobes, sometimes entire, glabrous or hairy, (only araneose hairs, occasionally also minute straight hairs on ligule base and tube). Scapes few to many, mostly developing from the centre of leaves, rarely lateral. Capitula large, homogamous, ligulate, solitary or rarely few on hollow scapes. Involucre oblong to campanulate; phyllaries 2-seriate; outer ones spreading, recurved or appressed; inner ones linear to lanceolate, unchanged in fruiting; both either smooth, or callose, corniculate (short distal abaxial apendages), or cornulate (longer appendages), marginate (if margin scarious whitish or paler than the median part) or not marginate ( margin neither scarious nor paler). Receptacle naked or rarely hairy. Ligules 5-toothed, usually yellow and striate, sometimes white or pink. Anthers sagittate at base, polleniferous or not. Style branches slender, obtuse, yellow or discoloured (greenish, greyish), sometimes drying black. Cypselas homomorphic, often 4-5-angled, 5-10-ribbed, usually ribs tuberculate, muricate or spinulate at least above or sometimes smooth, with a gradually or abruptly formed, conical or cylindrical cone at the top of the body, beaked or scarcely so; pappus 1-3-seriate of simple and unequal, scabrous (very short projections) or rarely barbellate bristles, white, snowy white, creamish or brownish usually persistent, very rarely deciduous.
Widely distributed in Europe, S. W., C. and S. Asia to W. Himalaya and to Far East Asia. A few species are found in N and S Africa and S. America, a number in N. America. The number of taxa depends on the species concept. Bremer (op. cit.) gives 60-500 species, from the world. Schischkin & Tzvelev (op. cit.) reported 202 species from the former Soviet Union that included C. Asia as well out of more than 1000 species from the World. Soest (op. cit.) has reported 43 species from Turkey and 90 species from Iran that includes Iraq, part of C. Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mamgain & Rao (op. cit.) include only 3 species from India but also list 79 species reported by Soest. R. R. Stewart (Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. Kashm. 1972) has listed 93 species from Pakistan. Ge et al. (op. cit) give 116 species for China, while Kirschner & Štěpánek (Folia Geobot. Phytotax. Praha 29: 265. 1994) report 2500 species in ca. 60 sections (about 3400 species names were published in this genus). Following Kirschner & Štěpánek (l. c.) the author has recognized 96 species from Pakistan distributed in 17 sections.
T. officinale Wigg. was treated as the type species, interpreted on the basis of the typification restricting it to the North European section Crocea M.P. Christ. Recently, Kirschner & Štěpánek (2011) published a new, corrected lectotype corresponding with the common European dandelion section (now sect. Taraxacum, syn.: sect. Ruderalia Kirschner, H. Øllg. et Štěpánek). For sectional nomenclature, see Kirschner & Štěpánek in Taxon 46: 87-98. 1997.