Annual, occasionally biennial or perennial, erect herbs, branches from middle. Leaves simple, entire or pinnately lobed, upper often decurrent, arachnoid hairy on both sides. Capitula heterogamous, borne at apices of shoots. Involucre ovoid to subglobose. Receptacle flat, with numerous bristles. Phyllaries ± rigid, with more or less triangular, long decurrent appendages, with a brown or blackish border, dentate or ciliate and apically never terminating in a mucro or spinule. Florets mostly violet blue rarely rose-purple or pinkish-purple, outermost florets sterile, lacking staminodes, strongly radiant and much enlarged, with more than 5 lobes. Cypselas pilose but not sericeous, with a tuft of hairs at margin of hilum. Pappus scabrous, biseriate, shorter than phyllaries, bristles of outer series longer than those of inner series.

A genus of ca 25-30 species, distributed in Southwest Asia, Central Asia, Mediterranean region. Represented  in  Pakistan by two species.