Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, without latex. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, entire to pinnatifid, linear, lanceolate or ovate. Capitula mostly radiate, rarely discoid, solitary or corymbose–paniculate. Receptacles usually epaleate. Ray florets female and fertile, or neuter, ligule usually 3–lobed, yellow, orange, red or purple, sometimes bicoloured. Disc florets bisexual, rarely functionally female, actinomorphic, 4– or 5–lobed, yellow or greenish yellow, often red to purplish distally or sometimes throughout, tube narrow with expanding limb. Anthers usually shortly calcarate, caudate to ecaudate, with appendages narrowly ovate to round. Style branches oblong–linear, with truncate or tapering apical appendages, stigmatic hairs obtuse, in two rows. Cypselas brown to blackish, clavate to ± terete, glabrous or hairy. Pappus of up to 12 ovate to quadratic rarely triangular, aristate–acuminate scales, rarely absent.

A small tribe comprising of 13 genera and ca 120 species, native to North, Central and South America. In Pakistan, it is represented by the following cultivated genus with 2 species.

The narrow tribal circumscription of Helenieae, consisting of only 13 genera, adopted here, is that of Panero (in Kadereit & Jeffery, Fam. Gen. Vasc. Pl. 8 : 400 – 401. 2007)  and Baldwin (in Funk, et al. (eds.) Syst. Evol. Biogeogr. Compositae 689–711. 2009) based on molecular evidence, compared to a broad concept of Helineae of Karis & Ryding in Bremer,  Asteraceae Clad. Class. 552. 1994 and several other workers. Most of the Helenieae can be distinguished from any other group of Heliantheae alliance by non carbonized cypselas rather they contain crystals in cypsela wall. The tribe is impotant from horticultural point of view as number of species of Gaillardia and Helenium are hoticulturally important.