Low-growing, usually basally branched, tufted or slender, mostly delicate perennial herbs with  slender well-branched woody rootstock and/or   vertical tap roots. Leaves in basal rosette  or along stem, attenuate to petiole, rotund to obovate or spathulate, or oblanceolate-linear, glabrous. Capitula 5-15-flowered, pedunculate, erect, few in a synflorescensce. Involucre cylindric, glabrous or tomentose throughout. Phyllaries green to dark-green, 2-few-seriate, glabrous or sometimes setulose or arachnoid hairy, outer ones 1/4 – 1/3 times as long as the flat or apically crested, linear-lanceolate, subequal inner phyllaries. Receptacle epaleate. Florets yellow or pale purplish-red or purple, with corolla tube usually longer than ligule. Cypselas mostly pale-brown or stramineous, terete or ± fusiform,  not flattened, thinly 10-ribbed, ribs unwinged, apically truncate, attenuate or beaked. Pappus caducous or persistent, composed of white, scabrid bristles.

A small genus consisting of  11 species (N. Kilian & C. Shih, op. cit.) distributed in Central, SW, and NE Asia and North America. Represented in Pakistan by 3  species.