Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, shrubs, lianas or trees. Leaves alternate or opposite, generally simple, rarely divided, usually petiolate, sometimes sessile; or subsessile. Capitula mostly heterogamous, radiate or discoid, rarely disciform, usually terminal, rarely axillary in open, paniculiform, cymes, sometimes congested or corymbiform cymes, sometimes solitary. Involucres cylindric to hemispheric. Phyllaries persistent, sub equal or gradate, 1-7 seriate, often innermost smaller than outermost, sometimes resembling paleae. Receptacles flat to convex or conical, paleate, rarely epaleate, paleae, usually persistent, conduplicate, enfolding the florets, occasionally tightly enveloping the cypselas and shed as a unit (perigynia). Ray florets few to many rarely, 1 (–2), or sometimes absent, usually pistillate and fertile, styliferous and sterile or neuter. Corollas usually yellow or white, sometimes red or orange, 3–lobed, rarely 2–lobed. Disc florets usually bisexual and fertile, rarely functionally male; corollas actinomorphic rarely zygomorphic, usually yellow to orange, lobes often 5, rarely 3 or 4, usually ± deltate to lanceolate– ovate, sometimes lanceolate to lance–linear. Stamens 5, rarely 4 or 3 , filaments usually glabrous, rarely papillose, anther connate or free, ecaudate, rarely shallowly tailed, sagittate, or with acute or acuminate lobes, appendages usually ovate. Style arms often with tuft of hairs / papillae increasing in density on distal ends. Cypselas with carbonized walls, compressed, rarely obcompressed, biconvex, narrowly or broadly obovate to suborbicular in outline, rarely terete, ray cypselas triquetrous and obcompressed, disc cypselas sometimes shallowly quadrate, rarely winged (Verbesina). Pappus of persistent awns and squamellae, sometimes reduced to an erose crown, rarely caducuous or absent.
A large tribe containing about 113 genera and ca 1500 species, distributed mainly in New World, subtropical, tropical, and warm–temperate regions. Represented in Pakistan by 12 genera and 17 species. Out of which 5 genera are cultivated. The tribe has number of economically important plants like Helianthus annuus, cultivated worldwide for its oil production and also other important horticultural genera like Rudbeckia and Zinnia cultivated worldwide for their attractive flowers.
The tribal circumscription of Heliantheae, adopted here is that of Panero (in Kadereit & Jeffrey (eds.) Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 8 : 440 – 477. 2007) and Baldwin (Heliantheae alliance in Funk et al. (eds.) Syst. Evol. Biogeogr. Compositae 689 – 711. 2009) which is much narrower than the broader concept of previous workers such as Bremer, Asteraceae : Cladistics & Classification 578 – 624. 1994, and Chen & Hind in Wu, Z. Y. et al. (Fl. China 20 – 21. 2011) .