Perennial, simple or branched, hispid herbs with fusiform or tuberous roots. Stem leafy or leafless, in upper half often with long, somewhat stiff brownish,  reddish to purplish-brown or blackish, mostly glandular or sometimes eglandular hairs. Leaves simple to pinnatilobed, lower ones lanceolate-ovate to hastate, dentate; upper ones reduced, sessile and ± auricled. Capitula nodding or erect, 7-70-flowered, solitary or up to 20 borne in a corymbose or occasionally in umbellate synflorescence. Involucre cylindrical to broadly campanulate. Phyllaries 2-3-seriate, imbricate, narrow, with or without black glandular hairs.  Florets yellow, blue or purple (not in our area). Receptacle naked. Cypselas ± fusiform, slightly flattened, with 5 principal ribs associated with 1 or 2 secondary ribs, apically truncate or attenuate. Pappus multiseriate, pale-brownish or ± white, scabrid, persistent or deciduous.

A small genus consisting of c. 10 species (Mabberley, 2008), distributed in Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. Represented in our flora by the following two species.