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Biennial or perennial herbs, rarely annual. Stems winged or not. Hairs bristly, or soft and multicellular, or cobwebby. Lvs alternate, sessile, entire or pinnatifid or pinnatisect, dentate; lobes and teeth spine-tipped. Capitula homogamous, cylindric, ovoid or globose, solitary or in corymbs or clusters. Involucral bracts in several series, deltoid, lanceolate or linear; hairs cobwebby or 0; outer bracts usually spine-tipped, often spreading. Receptacle flat; scales numerous, setaceous. Florets ☿ or unisexual, all tubular. Corolla glabrous, 5-lobed, usually purple, sometimes white or yellow. Anthers acute at apex, with basal appendages 0.5-1.5 mm long; filaments ciliate. Style branches linear, erect, appressed. Achenes obovoid, weakly flattened, glabrous, smooth; achene insertion basal; pappus hairs in several rows, soft, silvery, plumose, united at base into a ring.
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs. Stems erect, strongly branched, longitudinally striate, with or without wings, or plants acaulescent (not in Australia). Leaves oblong, pinnatilobed, with numerous spine-tipped lobes and lobules or entire. Capitula pedunculate, homogamous, sometimes unisexual (plants dioecious). Involucral bracts spine-tipped; margins entire. Receptacle flat to subconical, not alveolate, densely setose. Corolla purple, white or yellow; tube filiform; lobes linear. Anthers sagittate-connate; filaments free, pilose. Style branches connate, erect. Achenes oblong, smooth, glabrous, with narrow apical rim; carpopodium basal. Pappus deciduous, of numerous plumose, capillary bristles, basally united in a ring.
Herbs with spiny wings on stems. Leaves alternate, pinnatifid (in ours), with spine-tipped teeth. Capitula homogamous, discoid; phyllaries many, in several series, imbricate, usually spine-tipped; receptacle densely setose. Florets hermaphrodite, rarely unisexual, narrowly tubular with a broad, deeply 5-lobed limb; anthers with sagittate bases, the adjacent auricles connate, tailed; style with an abrupt swelling with a ring of hairs just below the branches, these flat and ± connate, diverging only distally. Achenes with a raised annular collar; pappus many-seriate, of plumose bristles connate into a ring at the base.
Style 2-branched, with an abrupt swelling below the branches and a ring of hairs at or below the swelling; the branches erect, long somewhat flat and ± connate, diverging only near the tips.
Phyllaries numerous many-seriate imbricate appressed, ± patent apically and usually spine-tipped, with or without subterminal vitta, margins entire to spinulose or lacerate.
Achenes ± oblong, compressed smooth, glabrous with a raised annular collar at the apex, attachment-scar sub-basal oblique or ± horizontal.
Florets hermaphrodite (rarely unisexual); corollas white to purple (yellowish), narrowly tubular with a broad deeply 5-lobed limb.
Pappus many-seriate; setae plumose, connate into a ring at the base, deciduous (± persistent), longest in the innermost series.
Capitula homogamous, discoid, loosely aggregated (or large solitary and terminal) on the branches.
Anther bases sagittate, the adjacent auricles connate and produced into entire or lacerate tails.
Leaves pinnatifid in the Flora Zambesiaca area (entire) with spine-tipped teeth at the margins.
Stems spiny-winged from decurrent leaf bases, rarely unarmed.
Receptacle flat or convex, densely long-setose.
Perennial or biennial (annual) herbs.
