Perennial herbs or ± shrubs. Stem decumbent or ascending, arachnoid hairy, containing abundant milky latex. Leaves basal or cauline and alternate, sessile or petiolate, entire to pinnatisect, glabrous above, white–woolly below or greyish hairy on both sides. Capitula radiate, solitary, axillary, on long peduncles or scapes. Involucre ± campanulate, turbinate or cylindrical. Phyllaries 2–4–seriate, fused in 1/3 – 3/4 of their length, scarious margined. Receptacle conical or convex, deeply pitted. Ray florets uniseriate, neuter or sterile, ligules yellow, orange or red to maroon, occasionally with a blackish spot at the base, apically 4–toothed and 5–nerved. Disc florets bisexual, outer fertile, middle ones sterile or functionally male, corolla lobes marginally sclerified. Anthers basally sagittate, not tailed, with apical appendages more or less fringed on margins, style slim, hairy below with long stigmatic branches. Cypselas obovoid, inconspicuously ribbed or with rows of swollen cells and ribless, densely silky hairy. Pappus scales 7–8 (–12) , ± equally 2–seriate, lanceolate to subulate–aristate.

A horticulturally important genus of ca 17–20 species, distributed in east tropical and southern Africa, Namibia; 2 species are grown in Pakistan as garden ornamentals and same also  naturalized in sandy habitats elsewhere.