Unarmed, annual or perennial, caulescent or acaulescent herbs, rarely suffructescent (shrublets). Leaves white tomentose, rosulate, alternate, entire or sinuate−dentate, pinnatilobed or pinnatisect. Capitula scapose, discoid, solitary or corymbose. Involucre bowl shaped, muticous, obovoid−campanulate to spinous, cylindrical to globose glandular. Phyllaris 4−6 seriate, herbaceous to leathery, imbricate, linear−lanceolate (outer ones sometime triangular), apex unarmed or spinulose, appressed or reflexed. Receptacle flat, with long broad rigid acuminate scales or densely bristly. Florets lilac, pink or purple to whitish. Anthers connate, basally sagittate, with lacerate to caudate tails and free, glabrous filaments. Style short, stigmatic branches divergent. Cypselas narrowly obpramidal, tetragonal, smooth or rugulose, usually squamulose, verrucate, tuberculate with a membranous crown around pappus base, umbo depressed, barrel or saucer−shaped. Hilum basal or nearly so. Pappus white, multiseriate, scabrid to barbellate or plumose, unequal in length, 2−3 innermost bristles much longer and broader than the rest and exceeding the corolla, basally united, persistent or deciduous as a whole.
A genus with about 250 species, found in South West and Central Asia, South and East Europe and North West Africa. Represented by 3 or 4 species in Pakistan.