Perennial, fibrous rooted, rhizomatous, never stoloniferous herbs with solitary to many stems from thick-fibred rootstock and with various sorts of simple hairs but including stellate and/or multiseriate hairs with projecting cell apices. Leaves petiolate or sessile, entire to shallowly or deeply dentate, basal leaves often in a rosette, frequently dried and withered at anthesis or absent, cauline leaves few to many, smaller in size or stems leafless. Capitula numerous-flowered, solitary to many, borne in panicle-like or corymbose or racemose synflorescence. Receptacle flat, alveolate. Involucre ± campanulate or turbinate at the base, (8–)9 –12(–20) mm long. Phyllaries in several irregular or regular rows, linear-lanceolate, imbricate, externally with various combination of simple, glandular and stellate hairs or glabrous. Ligules usually yellow, of different tints and shades, glabrous or teeth ciliate. Cypselas cylindric, ellipsoid, or narrowly obconical, 2.5–5 mm long, with 8–10(–14), apically confluent ribs to form an obscure ring at the truncate apices. Pappus 2-seriate, both short and long, scabrid, fragile, bristles intermixed or sometimes uniseriate, white, dirty white, dirty yellow or pale-brownish.

Hieracium is often considered congeneric with Pilosella but differs in the absence of stolons, the ligules lacking a red dorsal stripe and with a different type of apomictic mode of reproduction (diplospory in Hieracium vs. apospory in Pilosella). Hieracium lacks umbelliferone, a chemical marker, which is present in almost all species of Pilosella.

A highly problematic genus, constituting a separate subtribe with a few closely related genera, of which only Pilosella is present in Pakistan. Interspecific hybridization is quite common in the genus. Reproduction is sexual or mostly apomictic; up to 800 broader species and hybrids (or c. 5000 microspecies if the narrow species concept is followed). The Central European school of hieraciology generally accepts the broader species concept, while Scandinavian, British and Russian taxonomists traditionally recognise narrowly defined apomictic microspecies. Most early researchers on Indian Hieracium attributed their collections to European taxa which is being corrected now.

Most of the species of Hieracium are distributed in mountainous regions of Europe, NW Africa, Temperate and Tropical Asia, N. and S. America and introduced in Australasia. Represented in Pakistan by  8 species.