Annual or short-lived perennial herbs or small shrubs, branching near base, with T-shaped and simple multicellular hairs. Leaves alternate, serrate or lobed. Capitula hemispherical, homogamous, terminal, solitary or sometimes 2 or 3 together; involucral bracts multiseriate; outermost bracts foliaceous, patent; inner bracts thin, with distal margins scarious; receptacle epaleate. Florets numerous, bisexual, actinomorphic, purple to blue; corolla tube densely stipitate-glandular or glabrous; anthers obtuse at base; style without node below subulate branches, bearing acicular sweeping hairs. Achenes cylindrical to obconic, 8–10-ribbed, with ±quadrate raphides. Pappus a single series of short, flattened, rigid, stramineous, caducous bristles.
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