Annual or perennial, monocarpic herbs or subshrubs, leaves coriaceous, dentate to pinnatisect, marginally spinosely lobed or toothed, in basal rosettes or alternate on shoots, rarely unarmed. Capitula  homogamous, discoid or rarely heterogamous and radiate, solitary, sessile, subtended by foliaceous pectinate bracts. Involucre ovoid or campanulate. Phyllaries spiny, rarely entire, imbricate, outer leaf-like, pectinate, bipinnatisect, inner ones linear-lanceolate, usually with brown, wide scarious appendage. Receptacle flat, beset with hyaline, large, laciniate-fimbriate, free, rigid scales. Florets pink, purple  or yellow, outer ligulate, female, rarely with staminodes or bisexual; inner tubular, bisexual, 5-fid. Anthers basally caudate-sagittate with fimbriate tails, on free filaments. Styles short with erect, stigmatic branches. Cypselas terete to obconical, densely silky hairy, apically without elevated rim, hilum basal. Pappus 1-3-seriate of plumose scales, connate at the base.

A genus of 30 species, distributed in open dry habitats in Canary Islands, Mediterranean region eastwards to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Represented in Pakistan by 4 species.