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Annual or biennial herbs. Stems erect, branched, longitudinally striate; wings absent. Leaves broadly ovate to orbicular, cuneate to cordate at base; margins unarmed and almost entire (very shortly dentate), or rarely pinnatifid and shortly spinose (not in Australia). Capitula sessile to pedunculate, homogamous. Involucral bracts with entire margins and strongly hooked spinose apex. Receptacle flat to sub-concave, not alveolate, densely setose. Corolla purple; tube filiform; lobes narrowly deltate. Anther filaments free, smooth to papillose. Style branches free, becoming somewhat recurved. Achenes oblong-obovoid, rugose or smooth (not in Australia), glabrous, with or without narrow apical rim; carpopodium basal. Pappus deciduous, comprising many free, barbellate, ensiform bristles.
Fls all tubular and perfect, the cor pink or purplish, with a slender tube, short throat, and long, narrow lobes; invol subglobose, its bracts multi-seriate, narrow, appressed at base, with a spreading, subulate, inwardly hooked tip; receptacle flat, densely bristly; anthers very shortly awn-pointed at the tip, evidently tailed at the base; style with an abrupt change of texture below the minutely papillate branches; achenes oblong, slightly compressed, few-angled, many nerved, truncate, glabrous; pappus of numerous short, subpaleaceous, separately deciduous bristles; coarse biennial herbs with large, alternate, entire or toothed to rarely laciniate, mostly cordate-based lvs and several or many heads. 5, temp. Eurasia.
